Granny's On Her Game

You never know who's online these days.

Take Splendiferous 7 and Hazy_Decepsion for example.

When the pair logged on recently to play the popular "Settlers of Catan" game, they had no clue that their adversary, Trustacctant, was a 65-year-old Windsor grandmother.

Worse for them, Lyn Kimes is no ordinary gamer, but a skilled player who earned a trip to the national "Catan" championships, which begin today in Ohio.

Win there, and she'll head to Germany for the world championships.

"Sweet," Hazy_Decepsion wrote in a chat room after Kimes informed the pair of her real identity.

Kimes, who has been married for 24 years and has nine grandkids, doesn't fit the profile of an online gamer.

At the KublaCon Convention in Burlingame over Memorial Day Weekend, the person checking her in for the regional "Catan" tournament remarked on her unusual background.

"I said, 'What do you expect?'

He said, 'They're usually younger Asian males,' " Kimes recalled.

Kimes said even her neighbors in Windsor's upscale Vintana subdivision aren't aware of her gaming, which she labeled an "obsession."

Kimes has won cruises playing online poker, hosted family gin tournaments and logged thousands of backgammon games with her husband, Cal, sometimes playing over the phone when the certified public accountant is away on business.

"Instead of having normal conversations, that's how they spend their time on the phone," said one of her sons, Michael Burroughs, a PG&E employee who lives in Santa Rosa.

Kimes has been retired for many years after a career as a paralegal. She and Cal met two decades ago when he called her office to speak with an attorney.

It was the second marriage for both. Between them they have four children.

The couple are professed game-a-holics.

Every morning, they challenge one another to see who can finish a crossword puzzle first. Cal came out ahead last year but so far in 2007 he said he's being "hounded mercilessly."

Lyn Kimes, who once was a competitive tennis player, said she simply enjoys the competition, and insisted that she's not losing out on other areas of her life as a result of her gaming habit.

She cooks dinner for her extended brood every Sunday and attends her grandchildren's school activities.

Still, when a member of the family calls the house, they often are informed that Grandma is in the middle of a game.

So far, she has logged 2,124 games of "Catan" online in an office where the dominant feature is photos of her grandkids. Cal often joins in on another computer using the name Calql8r.

That's not counting the number of games the couple have played with family and friends.

"We're nuts," Lyn Kimes said with a laugh.

"Settlers of Catan" is a board game created by Germany's Klaus Teuber. To date, it has sold 13 million copies worldwide, with online versions for the PC and Xbox 360 expanding the game's audience.

The board game, which retails for $38, involves players immigrating to the newly settled island of Catan, where they build colonies by trading commodities and services.

The first player to achieve 10 points from a combination of roads, settlements and special cards wins.

"It's become a classic among board game groups," said Joe Yull at Outer Planes Games and Collectibles on Seventh Street in Santa Rosa.

Kimes views the game's combination of strategy and luck as analogous to real life.

"You start off down a path like you do in life and run into a roadblock," she said. "You have to adjust your route."

The many hours she's spent on the game paid off with her win at the regional tournament, where, in an unusual twist, two of the three other players to reach the finals were Cal's brother and sister, who also are Catan fanatics.

Lyn Kimes won by a single point. The victory earned her a spot in the U.S. championship at the Origins Game Expo in Columbus, where she will battle the nation's top Catan players in the board game starting today.

"I feel fortunate that I'm retired now and can do this," she said. "It's a kick."

You can reach Staff Writer Derek J. Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com.