OK, this is a problem. Because this is a message board, we don’t have forced turns. If we did, obviously I could play Euston off Elephant and Castle, the next player would have to play Liverpool Street, Swiss Cottage, or Lambert North, and then I could close with Mornigton Crescent (odd-numbered day and six stops from Brent Cross!)
But there’s no guarantee that I’d be the next person to post, and so that easy win is not possible.
So… instead of Euston … Leicester Square! Ha! Six unforced options to whoever wants to take it from there.
You’ve all fallen into it now. As evens are declared and I’ve called His Nibs, I can go to Queensway by way of Mudchute, thus completing a Circuit and protecting my wicket. I project three moves to East Ham, and I think you can all see the end game from there…
Not so fast, my friend! As Corso showed in the Trans-Canadian Open, back in '88 (or was it ‘87?), a Queensway-Mudchute with six options (which I see you obviously overlooked, even tho’ Bricker mentioned them) will throw us into a South Of The River Temporal Trans-Dimensional Shunt if I play East Putney.
However since I’m feeling magnanimous, I will forego the joy of forcing a SotRTT-DS, and merely declare Anti-Clockwise Tokens with
(Wait for it…)
I know, I know. But it’s still Tuesday, and since this game originated in the Northern Hemisphere, this move allows for a greater depth of midgame. Anybody who has read Richard Faulkner’s Treatise of the Waxing Moon can see the possibilities here. Why, the Northern Line options alone could take months to explore.
The problem with the Northern Line options at this point is that SOMEONE will bring up Chaucer…and I really can’t sit through an argument on the meaning of The Canterbury Tales again. And of course to avoid a repeat of the the 1924 eastern conference semi-final round disaster (I trust I don’t need to cover what happened) I shall go with Barons Court.
I think you’ll find that playing Barons Court in evens allows me to invoke the little-used Totsley Engagement, which negates Anti-Clockwise Tokens. Of course, that does leave the Piccadilly-Victoria loop wide open, but I find that Moorgate answers rather nicely for that, don’t you?
It’s a Totsley Engagement sighting! I haven’t seen one of those since the classic Takimoto-Hibbardsley 1952 Kuala Lampur Open semi-finals! Ahh, memories! It seems like yesterday, and lest we forget, it was Hibbardsley graciousness to the smashing Japanese champion that heralded a new age of Pan-Pacific friendship between the former enemies of Japan and Australia. Of course, said friendship was delayed, as we well know, three months while the match drug on and on and on…
So to avoid THAT particuliar quirk of international diplomacy, I shall spend three blue shillings, switch Evens to Odds, and go with South Wimbeldon.
Implied stirrups are invalid when posting before 6am GMT, which allows me to riposte with High Street Kensington. Lo-jinx are now in force at all Circle Line stations, according to Pountney’s 12th.
Odds and lo-jinx, eh? I’m sure you all reacll the (in)famous match in Glasgow wehre Albert Christie played Cannon Park after High Street Kensington. Well, I don’t have to tell you how that turned out. To avoid the mess that generated, and to invoke Browning’s Typos Rules (Please note the two in the first sentence.) I have no choice but the play Seven Sisters.
There have been some world class moves here already- in fact, I don’t think I’ve seen such a strong opening round since the Colonial Championships in Rhodesia in 1927. Those of you with long memories will recall Chalmer’s outstanding use of the Nitro Express gambit (so named, I believe, from the cartridges in his Elephant Gun) in which he took Mornington Crescent shortly before Morning Tea, which of course threw the whole schedule into disarray and led to the now infamous sudden death round in which Van Der Klass was disqualified for trying to play a limited service station on a Bank Holiday.
It is in this tradition of derring-do and heroic excellence that I shall play Cannon Street, and reminding anyone planning on countering with a Silly Mid-On maneovure that the Royal Armouries precedent will be taking Tower Hill out of play until the round after next, unless it’s a player’s wedding anniversary, in which case it can be bypassed entirely.
Is it too late to join? If not I’ll go for the Chummney-Kingston gambit and start from Hatton Cross.
BTW, i thought Cannon Hill was unusable until the 3rd shunt in games starting in October? We are adhering to the 1983 Samson Declaration I would assume? Has there been a more recent by-law that I have missed?
Pish! A deft and surgical demi-strile to South Harrow, and you’re in knip, my lad. I’m surprised you didn’t remember the “friendly” at Government House, Hong Kong, in 1904, when the visiting delegation from Bombay ruffled a few peacock feathers. It’s almost precisely the same move!
Are the situations that close? after all, Elephant and Castle has not been declared blocked yet, nor has there been 2 clockwise shunts from the border position.
(the Hong Kong friendly is required study material, IMO).
And for those who don’t know, they literally ruffled a few peacock feathers. the Indian delegation tried to break the concentration of the other players by letting a gaggle of Peacocks loose on the veranda of government House an hour before the commencement time (which had intended to be a present to the Viceroy, who had agreed to oversee the game). Sir Warchester Blennington Smythe, (ret.) who ran a successful wallah-for-hire business in bombay after his days soldiering, knocked one out of his way, ruffling the afforementioned feathers, in a rush to search the library for the 1898 revised rulebook (Byrce edition) to see if such a move was legal.
It was what led to the Chudwick utterance regarding the difference betweel calling a foul and calling a fowl.
We’re still at** South Harrow**, correct? Then I declare All Saints and let’s get down and dirty! Remember, fellow Colonials, that we have captured the Queen’s Cup 17 1/2 of the last 25 International Tournaments.
Would have been 18 if the 1904 Subcontinent Tournament in Karachi hadn’t been interrupted by Jezzail fire during Hawthorne’s attempt to invoke the Knightsbridge end-run, too.
You see, THIS is precisely why I claim the most excellent Players of the Great Game reside here on the Dope! Where else would you find such learned discussion? Well, other than the Mandalay MC Club, of course. I have scoured my library to attempt to find a move worthy of this game, and I THINK I may have just the ticket.
In the little referenced Odessa Compendium (4th ed./revised - Billingham Translation '04), von Scheorner, responded to South Harrow-All Saints w/ implied stirrups, with a Midlands Mash-Up, which swung the Greater Ukrainian Championships of 1932 (a MOST under-reported classic, in my humble opinion), allowing him to reach MC, 4 plays later.
However, not wishing to be derivative of the disgraced German (how could he have thought he would win '36 Olympics MC Final with such an elementary Bank-Marble Arch-Monument progression against Ottoslaw Kazzienskiy??), I was inspired to declare a Docklands Digression!
So, therefore, I declare Stirrups no longer implied, and risk it all on…
