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Hi, I'm Vera! As OBG's organizer, I grew up with Monopoly and Scrabble and was oblivious to the rich variety of games that exist. It wasn't until my friend Axel introduced me to Dominion in 2014 that I fell in love with the hobby. Shortly after that experience, I moved from Oakland to Detroit, Michigan. Perhaps due to the cold winters in Michigan, the board gaming culture is nearly mainstream in metro Detroit. I went from playing family weight games to heavy, economic euros like Power Grid and Food Chain Magnet, attended my first GenCon, and started GM'ing at local gaming conventions.
I returned to California in 2018 and found it challenging to find people to play strategic board games with. To rekindle the sense of community I had in Detroit, I started organizing casual game days, largely from networking at Victory Point Cafe or finding people on various Discord servers. During COVID, we primarily played online and I started the Oaklandish Board Gamers (OBG) Discord group to organize playing on Boardgamearena.com while we quarantined. Beginning in 2022, the Discord group started to grow by word of mouth and we switched from hosting games at my private home to a regular Saturday meetup at local restaurants and breweries. |
I used to host games in my garden at my home in Fruitvale, Oakland. I was obsessed with Power Grid and had just picked up Wingspan at GenCon 2019.
This was the last photo of our game day pre-COVID. I used to have a super long table and we could play three games concurrently (can you guess the names of the games pictured?).
Where we are today
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We meet every Saturday from 1-6pm in locations around Oakland and host organized play at private homes during the week. The OBG Discord server is where you'll find the latest info on our events and conversations. There are sub-channels where we discuss movies, organize hikes, and share pics of our pets.
If you'd like an invite to our Discord, please complete the form below. |