Reiner Knizia Addendum

First off, for those of you who don't know, Reiner Knizia is a very prolific and incredibly talented German game designer of which I am a huge fan.
His website is here.

Secondly, I was asked for more specifics about the experience:
Q: So what was he like in person? Serious? Funny? Totally focused on the game?

A: he was all three....definately focused on the game...he was very much doing his "job"...
he had two hours to get as much ideas and opinions out of us as he could, so when conversation strayed he brought it right back to the game...

but when one of us would think out loud something like "hrm...what can i do to get him"(speaking of reiner) he would say something like "oh, don't worry about it too much, there's nothing you can do to beat me" in a totally friendly and joking but also most of the time totally true way.... :)

he was super nice and funny, but way too damned smart... one game we ganged up on him and he came in second instead of first... :)

it was really interesting experience though...
he would say, "ok, here is a game i've been working on that i'm not happy with....the rules are...blah blah blah...." then we'd play it, and he'd say what he didn't like, we'd make some suggestions and talk about it....then he'd say, "ok, let's try THIS"...
and we'd play again, and it'd be WAY more fun.....then one of us would say "how bout THIS"...and we'd play it again and it'd be WAY more fun again....

it was awesome....it went exactly that way for 3 different games we played....he knew exactly what feedback we gave him would make the game way better, while we were just throwing out ideas...