Hutton's claim to be an impartial observer should be examined by the Certified Unitary National Trust. Also, someone should nip down to the bookies and see if he has a monkey on Bob to win.
If you review post 56 and remember to keep in mind what the ultimate aim of the game is I think you'll find BobCesca very clearly won. However, in an attempt to grab an honourable second place I will play Kentish Town.
Once again, for the observer, this is a very powerful move but does open up the entire board for the rest of the players. I am disregarding my own preferred play style to try and force a mistake from my opponents. I've effectively given them enough rope to hang themselves with.
In some ways it actually reminds me of Ross Noble's maiden game, as captured in transcript >here<
The thing that is missing from this transcript is the look of sheer disbelief on the other players faces when they realised what had happened. It, of course, resulted in a minor revolution of game analysis and several "big" games were realised to have had massive win opportunities passed over because the great players had over analysed the board and missed the simple move.
Alistair your kind of rules-nitpicking is the sort of thing that led to the Revised Mornington Crescent Rules Appendix Annotations Volumes 1 through 34 being created in 1972. Volume 31, Section 874b, Subsection F(1) clearly states that unintentionally saying the words 'Mornington Crescent' or stating the words in a manner quite apart from actually naming the station as part of a legitimate move does not count as a legal move to Mornington Crescent, and cannot therefore be considered a winning move.
What worked for your kind in 1953 won't work now. I have my eye on you, cully, and the Official Guild of Mornington Crescent Players (Welwyn Garden City chapter) is monitoring your every move for intentionally bringing the name of the game into disrepute.
Oooooh, lets play with Prendergast they say, it's a man's game they say, I'll box and shunt they say and then the first hint that they've been outfoxed and it's all spirit of the game, plain reading of the rules they say.
Willie Rushton would be spinning (or possibly reverse lateraling) in his grave. Who can forget his brilliant opening move victory "When you stand on top of Mount Pleasant you will see Mornington Crescent". In a game that was supposedly supposed to be a teaching game. Ruthless, utter ruthlessness that can only be applauded. And you would rule that illegal! Preposterous!
Wait a moment. Hutton. Alistair Hutton. That name sounds awfully familiar. Alistair Hutton.
Oh no. Oh, this explains everything.
Would you, perchance, be the very same Alistair Hutton who was arrested and detained by the Latvian Constabulary when he stormed the stage of the World Championship Quarter-Finals and disrupted the match between Don Juan De-mon and his opponents Ricky-Ticky Tavi, Alfred Arbuthnot and Kevin Henderson nee Wallis with a violent protest on the subject of shunting while boxed and heading counter-widdershins? Your anarchic attempts to violate the spirit of the game have no place here.
By Jove, a Hutton? Here? I had assumed the name was mere coincidence - one can't assume foul intent of all the world's Huttons - but if he's truly one of that godforsaken clan, that thorn in the side of Morningtoners everywhere, then I am in your debt. Bogart, for deducing it so soon. Who knows to what depths he'd have sunk in his quest to pervert the glory of the game? Ever since the very first game of Mornington, in that hallowed sleeper carriage in 1858, the Huttons have been lurking outside the window, plotting their twisted plots to bring the Queen of Games to her knees. Shame on you, Alistair Hutton. Shame on you. May you flee this forum, and darken our delights no more.
Oh, for goodness sake. Frankly if we aren't going to play the game as described in the rules then we may as well just be shouting out the names of stations at random and that, my friends, would drag the great game to the level of a a total and utter farce.
Be that as it may I play St Enoch's Inner Circle. Let's see if you can find an excuse to disallow that move then!
Oh and as for having a 'reputation' (as a defender of the game) you are one to talk Bogart, or to see through you transparent pseudonym, Baron of Gwent and Rywhyl Trent.
Imagine, a professional such as yourself playing a casual public game without announcing yourself and taking a 3 station handicap as is only right. Were your defeats in the Summer Series so bad you need an ego boost of an easy victory against a group of amateurs?
My well-publicised problems during the summer series was, as should have been apparent to all who know anything about the matter, more down to the resurgence of the war-wound that has vexed me since the Battle of Umboto Gorge, oh so many years ago. I do not claim this as an excuse, and would never in a million years bring up the enormous amount of work I do for charity and the toll it takes on my gout-ridden knees, but there it is.
I am happy to take a three-station handicap, but was, I assure you, playing only to experiment with an interesting variation on the Neeldownantakit defence. Winning was the last thing on my mind.
The sheer amount of deception, tomfoolery and all-around shenanigans in this session is enough to boggle the mind. Am I to understand that not one, but two of our players have been concealing their identities as well-known exponents of the game? In obvious contradiction of the 2007 Shambhala-Duckett Intergenerational Coda? What shall we see next, a reinsurgence of the South Tottenham Ladies' Brigade? I am weeping, gentlemen, weeping in my conservatory, that such a glorious and beautiful game should have sunk to the level of a common urchin's checkers match.
Let's bypass all the nonsense here, gentlemen and ladies, and move along. Since one Mstr. C. King has put me in a poor position, the most I can do is shuffle to the delightfully obscure Dollis Hill. I fully expect to be in Nip within the next three turns, but there we are.
Hmmm... well, I thought that I was going to be in real trouble when I was able to play, but thanks to a rather short-sighted move by Zetetic, I am in a fairly powerful position here. You see, it allows me to invoke Sir Callingworthy's Fourth Law, which allows me play any Double Cross as though it were a Single Loop. Being as such, I'm going to make a bold move to Wanstead Park.
I hardly think playing under the name Alistair Hutton would disguise the fact that I am Alistair Hutton. Controversial I know. However, I feel we are moving into the end game here, I will play Buchannan Street and take advantage of the travelator (invoking Poe's 3rd) to make an immediate transfer to Queen Street station.
An obvious strategy for a Glasgwegian such as myself but fairly powerful in the situation. Plenty of counters but none that wouldn't significantly weaken anyone who moved against me here. Given the current environment, the other players would set upon them like a pack of hungry dogs fighting over the severed arm of an innocent civilian casualty at the Battle of Umboto Gorge.
BobCescaIs a girlBirmingham, UKRegistered Userregular
edited December 2009
I feel we need someone to take charge of this mess.
It reminds me of a few years back and the unmentionable happenings of 1989 in Prague, which I'm sure you will all remember and the disaster it was. A moments silence for all those who will be sadly missed.
Hopefully we can sort this out, especially as it has now been discovered we have two professionals among us, though it would have been the decent thing to have declared this from the beginning and allowed play to follow the rules for the occurrence of such an event.
Yes, let us please see the normal order of play restored! Poor Burnage must be at his wits end trying to plot his next move with such chaos erupting in the play area.
Professional? Me? I have never accepted a penny's recompense for participation in the greatest of games. Not for me either the tawdry production line of strategy guides where each year there is seemingly another "revolution" in the way the game must be played that results in a new slew of books from the usual suspects.
If I find myself (through promises or commitments to others) in as vulgar a thing as a tournament that has a reward as base as money then I of course donate it to Lady Chatterham's Home for the Retired Player. As noble a cause you will ever find.
Don't think yourself convincing, Hutton. But let's put this bout of indecency behind us, and return to play like civilised men. Burnage has some time yet to make his move, but I assume he is aware that too long a period of inaction will trigger the rotation of Fotherington's Timer, which in conjunction with the Austervich Corollary would pass on play to... well, I must confess that I've always had some trouble with this particular intersection of the rules. Of course, he may have concealed a reposition with cover of the Bridge's Shadow Inclination, in which case all bets are off.
The only way, literally only way, that could have been done better is if you had followed the winning post with a thread lock. Invoking the ancient tradition of Moderatus di Finito.
As an outside observer to this fascinating match, I have to say I was impressed with all the complex approaches employed by the players involved, despite the appearance of a Hutton, of all people! Amazing play at the end there by tube, really inspiring how he bided his time for just the right moment and struck when no one expected it.
Though, if I was a less trustworthy sort, I would dare say he invited the Hutton into this game, knowing it would mask his brilliant gambit!
Posts
Don't let him fool you.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Once again, for the observer, this is a very powerful move but does open up the entire board for the rest of the players. I am disregarding my own preferred play style to try and force a mistake from my opponents. I've effectively given them enough rope to hang themselves with.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
The thing that is missing from this transcript is the look of sheer disbelief on the other players faces when they realised what had happened. It, of course, resulted in a minor revolution of game analysis and several "big" games were realised to have had massive win opportunities passed over because the great players had over analysed the board and missed the simple move.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
What worked for your kind in 1953 won't work now. I have my eye on you, cully, and the Official Guild of Mornington Crescent Players (Welwyn Garden City chapter) is monitoring your every move for intentionally bringing the name of the game into disrepute.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Willie Rushton would be spinning (or possibly reverse lateraling) in his grave. Who can forget his brilliant opening move victory "When you stand on top of Mount Pleasant you will see Mornington Crescent". In a game that was supposedly supposed to be a teaching game. Ruthless, utter ruthlessness that can only be applauded. And you would rule that illegal! Preposterous!
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Oh no. Oh, this explains everything.
Would you, perchance, be the very same Alistair Hutton who was arrested and detained by the Latvian Constabulary when he stormed the stage of the World Championship Quarter-Finals and disrupted the match between Don Juan De-mon and his opponents Ricky-Ticky Tavi, Alfred Arbuthnot and Kevin Henderson nee Wallis with a violent protest on the subject of shunting while boxed and heading counter-widdershins? Your anarchic attempts to violate the spirit of the game have no place here.
I will be contacting the authorities.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Be that as it may I play St Enoch's Inner Circle. Let's see if you can find an excuse to disallow that move then!
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Imagine, a professional such as yourself playing a casual public game without announcing yourself and taking a 3 station handicap as is only right. Were your defeats in the Summer Series so bad you need an ego boost of an easy victory against a group of amateurs?
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
And if it is, will you autograph my copy of your Amateur's Guide to Shunting, Preflipping and Deosil?
I am happy to take a three-station handicap, but was, I assure you, playing only to experiment with an interesting variation on the Neeldownantakit defence. Winning was the last thing on my mind.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
An obvious strategy for a Glasgwegian such as myself but fairly powerful in the situation. Plenty of counters but none that wouldn't significantly weaken anyone who moved against me here. Given the current environment, the other players would set upon them like a pack of hungry dogs fighting over the severed arm of an innocent civilian casualty at the Battle of Umboto Gorge.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
And as you well know, Hutton is a very common name. Why, in this country alone there are almost two hundred thousand people called Alistair Hutton.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
It reminds me of a few years back and the unmentionable happenings of 1989 in Prague, which I'm sure you will all remember and the disaster it was. A moments silence for all those who will be sadly missed.
Hopefully we can sort this out, especially as it has now been discovered we have two professionals among us, though it would have been the decent thing to have declared this from the beginning and allowed play to follow the rules for the occurrence of such an event.
If I find myself (through promises or commitments to others) in as vulgar a thing as a tournament that has a reward as base as money then I of course donate it to Lady Chatterham's Home for the Retired Player. As noble a cause you will ever find.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Though, if I was a less trustworthy sort, I would dare say he invited the Hutton into this game, knowing it would mask his brilliant gambit!
Either way, Huzzah to all the players.
*polite applause*
No, wait a second I got my punctuation wrong there.
That went awfully! Well, lets move on to another game.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.