I think I follow…but can you call customs without alerting an engineer? Or do you just have to be in the right place at the right times? Most of the websites are dreadfully ambiguous on the inspections, and I haven’t gotten to the Maintenance chapter in the book yet.
And seriously, does anyone have a good map of the Underground? I can’t find one online that’s not either missing zones or missing routes and stations, and it’s getting rather frustrating. The book’s version has print so tiny I have to squint.
Thats where the penalties,royalties,bribes and flim-flammery. I would have declared flim-flammery, but I’m not eligble since I declared knickerbockers. So I paid the penalty, one brown to all players.
So where are we…? Standby at Queens Park? Before tea & biscuits? Interesting, Skeezix. Later sessions will tell whether your, IMO rather prematurely released, flag play will prove beneficial to you. I shall do my best to dispel any illusions of a walk-over by employing J. Richardson-Pritchard’s famous “Khyber Pass dogde” with a cry of “all aboard and down with the Pashtun it’s Turnpike Lane!”
Still stuck firmly in the Early Mid-Game I see, and at **Turnpike Lane **to boot. This brown token is entirely too familiar to me, and I don’t see a way to lose it anytime soon. Fortunately, I think Customs puts you all in the same boat.
Too many riders to return to the Actons yet…
So, I will employ Morelli’s Defense and temporize at
Boston Manor on a fish n’ chips? Perhaps it’s too early where you are, or maybe you’ve forgotten the Sixpence Decision of 1866, but according to a strict interpretation of the Omnibus Foodservice Notations you’ve landed us in the knid.
Luckily as I still have a red token, this gives me nibs, which I shall gleefully take advantage of.
Doubling down on the chips, with a red and brown token lets 3 riders off. Coming out of onside and cancelling the inspection, I’m going to cross-shunt to East Acton and close bus transfers.
Ah, I see we are progressing nicely into the Early-Mid Midgame. Bus transfers are out? East Acton is occupied with a Central line shunt?
Born out of the 1982 Mt Olympus MC Test Match, where Leslie A Cornwallis soundly defeated a very cheeky Malcolm Hardcolmbe-Smith, I will gold-token a doubles express run to Paddington, and declare currency exchanges on for any Circle, thereby relinquishing interest-free-exchequer.
I hate to upset the apple cart, but I still haven’t found a good map so I’m kind of in a holding pattern at the moment. Paddington, while I polish my brown token into a yellow token.
I think I need to open the game up a bit as we are in danger of creating a jammer. If we aren’t careful, and then we’ll be here all day just trying to return to Lodgers, I’m afraid. I think, King’s Cross should do the trick, but I would remind my fellow contestants of the unfortunate events of the 1988 Welsh Invitational and the unfortunate demise of little Bobby Bakey (R.I.P.)
If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it a thousand times, That was not my fault. If he hadn’t flagrantly disregarded the rules, I never would have had to bring him to pistols.
Onto other things, I see that Mr. Pedescribe is using a late edition of Colin’s since it recommends his play directly. To quote p478 paragraph 9, “The Holstein Colonial Defense: A tricky play that requires the player to declare Rioting Street Vendors obliquely during a paid delay action.” Well I’m onto your shenanigans, you sly boots. Upsetting the apple carts, clever and devilish! He must be a natural. Well from King’s Cross it appears time for me to red token Arsenal, in the hopes that someone will tunnel jump later on.
Well, this has taken quite a seasonal turn, hasn’t it? Reminds me of a one-on-one game a couple of years ago where my opponent and I reached a tacit agreement to stalemate by Christmas Tree, just to give the spectators a giggle. Strictly speaking it wasn’t quite by the book as there was no Cascade, but everyone present appreciated the joke and it meant we could knock off early for egg-nog.
As there’s clear water between Putney and Mortlake, I’ll execute a chaisse en tierce to Farringdon and let the cards fall where they may, IYKWIMAITYDBLFIWAAH
This allows to me to discard my brown token, at the cost of removing stirrups. A hard choice, but legal under Montmartre’s 1938 Appendix.
I’m still trying to work my way back to the Actons. I do need a lot more practice at that facet of the game, as I find the possibilities of cross- and side-shunts and National Rail connections mystifying. Although one learns by doing, eh?
Wow, just wow! That is a fantastic maneuver, I don’t think I have seen that before although it does bear some resemblence to the famous triple fallback with a twist by Jonathan Lyttleton at the Commonweatlh Championships in Bath in 2001 (I still maintain that the official robbed Lyttleton of four red tokens with a completely bollixed reading fo Mcarthy and the inappropriate use of the word “Hedgehog”, not that it would have afffected the outcome. Of course that would never happen these days thanks to Pemborke Chapter 12, Sec A, subsection 1, clauses 33-52). But Lyttleton of course, was dealing with a chomping, which isn’t applicable in this case. I must say I am kind of flying blind here as that move is really something I have never seen, which means I think I have to play it safe and go with Elephant & Castle and hope it doesn’t blow up in my face.
For a player “flying blind”, as you say, I must admit I find that your instincts reveal an impeccable sense of proportion. I, as most others who adhere to the pre-partition (or should we say pre-Chattopadhyay) Bengal school of mid-play, have a soft spot for the almost austere aesthetics of the double or triple fallbacks of which your play is an excellent example.
I shall follow your example with a favorite of mine in these situations: Wimbledon.
Wow, Wimbledon? I’m in a fix now. I mean, I could call “Mornington Crescent in 17” but you’re all going to see that coming three zones away and the lateral play to a Richmond-Gunnersby sacrifice would, inevitably, be blocked by someone invoking kestrels and playing back to Parson’s Green and them I am, and the British would say, totally screwed.
I’m going to go all old school and take a play right out of Witham’s match against Switall in the 1966 Pan-American Games and play something conservative: East Putney.
Okay, so I’m up to Chapter 16, Employees and Agents (chaotic)–and that just sounds really cool. I don’t think it’ll help my position too much, but I’m too curious to care. So before my turn, I’m going to exchange my yellow token and a red token for the services of a Hooligan, who I ask to cause some chaos, reducing the buses back to 3 riders.
Now…as for the move. I still haven’t found a good map–right now I’m working off one that’s completely anagramed. I’ve got most of it decoded though. So I transfer to Rugby Skin, or Kingsbury for those of you who don’t like anagrams.
Wait…Stillman plays this?! Wow–he must have a lot to memorize. I’ve bought a few of his chess books too.
Well, since agents are in play, red and gold are pitshivered. It looks like we’ve entered the mid-game proper. That means aggressive moves and wagers on all plays for the cascading empire. I wager 4 brown and 3 white on an onside keep-left for Great Portland Street. 2 reds or a brown bid to the gentleman who can give me the year and event where this move precipitated the MC in 6.
Well, well… what a varied game! I’m seeing both “Opening Moves” and “End Game Finalisers” being played almost concurrently. Remarkable!
And in that spirit I think a Holmes-Rafferty excursion to Baker Street (taking care to employ the Oyster Card!) might help shake things up a bit.
Keen Mornington Crescent Fans might recall a similar play during the ill-fated Tea Trolley series of 1899-1900, but will note that in that case most of the players were in Knid and Fotheringham was responding to a desperate but brilliantly executed Nordenfeldt Gambit, so the circumstances aren’t exactly the same this time round…
