Big Board Raiders Review

Big Board Raiders – setting up the board to play

admin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 06:24:25 +0000

Getting ready to play Big Board Raiders

All players choose a play piece (pawn) to represent themselves on the playing board and place it on any space on the board to start. You cannot choose a Yellow, Blue, Red or Green pawn, these are reserved and go on their dots. Then follow the instructions in the video to setup the board for play. Have fun and let the kids win sometimes…

You will notice when it mentions how many time cards there is a flub, this is because the old rule set in the manual that accompanies the game says 5 time cards, it is now 4 time cards. As well, when it mentions how much money to give each player there is another flub, this is because the old rule set in the manual says $50,000. These to changes as well as transaction limits being removed, speed up the game and make it about an hour long instead of a marathon.

Setting up the Board

Each player chooses a play piece and places it on any space on the board to start.

Place the Red pawn on the red dot, the Yellow pawn on the Yellow dot, the Green pawn on the Green dot and the Blue pawn on the Blue dot.
Place the red Big Board markers for each Company at the “Issue” value on the Big Board.
Take the pile of cards marked “Call Options” and shuffle them, placing them in the square marked “Call Options”.
Take the pile of cards marked “Put Options” and shuffle them, placing them in the square marked “Put Options”.
Take the pile of cards marked “Rights Offerings” and shuffle them, placing them in the square marked “Rights Offerings”.
Take the pile of cards marked “Time” and sort the “Time” cards from the separator “End of the Year” cards. Shuffle the Time cards and place 4 card in a pile then a Separator card (End of the Year) and then a 4 cards on top and a Separator card, until all 9 Separator cards are used. Place the pile in the square marked “Time”. (At the top of the pile the Time cards should be in the following order, four (4) Time cards followed by a separator card, repeating). Do this until the “Year End” cards are used up. There are extra Time cards, to add uncertanty to the game, save them for next game.
For the next game include the extra Time cards before you shuffle for a new game.

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Review of Directorships

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 01:10:59 +0000

In bigboardraiders you want to hold directorships for two reasons:

the first is you collect dividends at the year-end for each one you hold and this is how you grow a year-end income stream.
the second is you need a majority of directorships in the company of your escrow directorship to win the game.

There are two kinds of directorship:

The first kind of directorship, that was touched on earlier (when we reviewed the Proxy Sheet) called the escrow directorship. This directorship is one where the player has to be elected by proxy to hold it. This is accomplished by collecting or earning all the proxy votes of the subsidiaries of that company and recording them on the proxy sheet. If this isn’t clear, go to the proxy sheet review.

The play pieces have a peg to accomodate more rings. When you have been elected, you trade your starting pawn ”play piece” (below the ones on the right of the squiggly line not colored yellow, blue, red or green) for the color coded pawn “play piece” on the left along the top called the escrow directorship of that elected company, which are colored yellow, blue, red or green. Note there are no shares required to hold these escrow directorships and you cannot loose them but you can quit and go to another company.

The second kind is called a common directorship and you must buy and hold 40,000 common and/or preferred shares for each directorship to keep them in good standing. When you have 40,000 shares, you can add another color coded ring to your pawn or “play piece” to designate your position. You can have as many common directorships in as many companies as you want. If you have the shares you can have the rings. You do not have to have an escrow directorship to have common directorships, in fact it is wise to start accumulating common directorships in anticipation of acquiring the escrow directorship, just to put your opponents on their heels.
So, what is called a voting majority, the winner, is an Escrow Directorship and half of the available Common Directorships of that same company. It’s a simple enough premise.

Review of the Proxy Sheet

admin — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:54:59 +0000

Review of the Proxy Sheet – When the game begins you will be given a play piece, some cash and a Proxy Sheet. When you land on a subsidiary space on the playing board, you are given a proxy vote to be elected to a special directorship of that company. The first player to collect all six proxy votes of any company is elected to this special directorship that is held in escrow. Don’t let the word escrow scare you, it just means that something is held in trust until a condition is fulfilled.
The condition here is, “you were first to collect all the required proxies.”

Each Proxy Sheet is good for 9 games, where the first column is a sample to show you how to record your proxy votes as you collect them.

Once you have an escrow directorship, it is not a bad idea to keep collecting proxies from other companies because you never know when you will need an exit strategy. To make a long story short, each company has only one (1) escrow directorship and you need one to win, but a player can only hold one at a time. If you qualify for a second escrow directorship, you can choose to “quit” but you must give up the first one to hold the second. This is a strategic move when you are cornered. You’ll see.

We will talk more about the significance of this special directorship called the “escrow directorship” when we review directorships.

The Prospectus of each Company

admin — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:06:59 +0000

Review of the Prospectus – This is the document that is filed with the SEC for every company that publicly trades. It is supposed to tell all so that everyone has the same information and in theory level the playing field. If you believe that, I have some lovely swamp land for sale.

The Prospectus has all the information about the number of shares in the company which is called equity, the number of directors, what the company does and why it needs your money. If it borrows from you in the form of a bond issue, this is called debt, the company will state how much they have borrowed and what they will pay you in interest, and when, as well as the company will state whether the debt is convertible into common shares. It will also tell you if there are any sweeteners like preferred shares and what they pay.

It will list the assets the company owns, which could be other companies called subsidiaries and lots more stuff that nobody cares about, but its in there. But if you were going to take-over a company, you definitely would want to know what is in the Prospectus.

It is like the blueprint to the bank’s vault. You would not go out onto a battlefield without looking over the hazards and the opportunities. The Rutland Stock Exchange is your battlefield and the prospectus is the enemies’ vulnerability and what opposition you will be facing.

The Prospectus will tell your targets strengths and weaknesses and from that information you will formulate your plan of attack. This is a war and with money as the main weapon and your wits are what will decide if you win or lose.

For the purposes of this game, you should give the prospectus of each company a read, but it is fairly basic. It will tell you what subsidiaries they own, how many shares are in the company you are targeting, the number of directorships and what is a voting majority to win.

TIME and the YEAR-END Payments

admin — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 00:54:59 +0000

TIME Review – Another of the basic components of this game is how TIME is measured for the various time related investments available for the players to exploit. Put another way, what governs the time value of money. The mechanics of time are that there are 40 spaces on the playing board and 8 of those spaces are TIME spaces. That means that on any given turn, the odds are 1 in 5 that a Time space will be landed on and will result in a TIME CARD to be drawn from the top of the deck. The deck is stacked at the beginning of a game with a separator card, which is a YEAR END card, and then 4 time cards and then a separator card until all separators are used up (9 of them) so that there are 4 time cards on top of the deck.

The 4 TIME CARDS represent the quarterly scramble that takes place in the markets when reporting earnings, which can affect share values. On average, there is one TIME CARD drawn every 5 turns, regardless of the number of players, and on average 20 turns will be a YEAR for the purposes of the Time value of money. At the YEAR END, interest is paid to bondholders and preferred shareholders, dividends are paid to directors and options expire worthless. As well, short sales are given a margin call at the year end. And then a new year begins again.

The MARKET in Big Board Raiders

admin — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:54:59 +0000

Market Review – One of the basic concepts of this game is how the market records and maintains the share value of the four companies that trade on the Rutland Stock Exchange. In this fictitious country called Rutland, they have a central bank and their own currency that is injected into the economy regularly through the stock exchange. And like any fiat economy inflation is a part of the deal.

The share values are recorded on the Big Board in the center of the playing board (a small section of it is shown as the thumbnail in this review). The Big Board is the 4 color coded columns representing the 4 companies (Yellow, Blue, Red and Green) that trade on the Rutland Stock Exchange. The red markers represent the value of the shares at any particular time and there is only one marker for each column or company. Each time a value changes, the appropriate markers are moved to record the value.

The Market has two components; the first event of any players turn is the part of the market that is programmed by the algorithm built into the playing board and the other part of the market is the result of what the player does on their turn. If they buy the market goes up or if they sell it goes down. When it is not your turn, the value of your portfolio is still being affected by what other players are doing, so a little table talk might help your situation. In fact, your mouth is your biggest asset or liability.

Ganging up and back-stabbing are also strategies. Hey it’s a stock market, which is the result of the players’ actions at the table. Different personalities make for a different game, like the real market. The players’ influence is magnified so that their decisions have the muscle of a hedge fund manager.

This all might sound intimidating, but this game is a perfect grade 5, 6 and 7 math problem generator. Each turn presents the player with another math problem to solve.

For instance, you have to calculate how much the number of shares you want to buy or sell will cost, then how much dough to give the broker and finally, how much change you have coming back, if any. Then you will have to keep track of your income streams at year-end.

Here is a standard problem;

In grade 6 math: Soda costs $1.50 per bottle and Jimmy wants 5 bottles, how much will it cost. $7.50

In Big Board Raiders: Red company shares trade for $1.50 per share and Jimmy wants 5,000 shares, how much will it cost. $7,500

It’s the same problem only we push it a little to add place holders for the integers by moving 3 decimals to the right. Then you have to count out the right amount to pay for it, or deal with how much overpayment.

So if you passed grade 6 math you are equipped to play. If you are in these grades, after you play this game, you will ace math and you’ll know something about money as well.