No such station. I give up.
How many times in this game have people ‘played’ stations that don’t exist, and other players have just carried on regardless? Seriously, I just give up. I don’t know what you’re all playing, but it isn’t Mornington Crescent, that’s for sure.
And did you notice that Bricker’s move was possible whether Lime Street existed or not? That is, it followed logically from Finchley Central as well, though as part of a very different move structure, no matter where you assume Lime Street to have been? I tell you, that’s the kind of subtlety that makes me think we have some championship players here, not just Saturday-afternoon-teatime enthusiasts.
Sunspace is correct, at least per the Mid-Atlantic Regional practice and Pimlico rules. Bricker’s moves stand, but once we disregard Dead Cat’s Lime Street (a possible misspelling of Limehouse) the doubling doesn’t hold, and the token from Marble Arch is, appropriately enough, marble instead of silver.
I’ll play what Dead Cat was attempting: Limehouse
Ha!
Aldgate East
MC delayed due to Tumpington’s Divergence, but still in no less than 22 moves. The Early Endgame is afoot!
Double-Ha! You have all fallen into my trap! Allow me to explain. Firstly, Lime Street was a deliberately illegal move. Normally, of course, that would force me to discard my tokens, revoke any terminuses played, close the Circle Line for essential maintenance, and move to the back of the queue. But what you have all overlooked is that not only is Lime Street a mainline station in Liverpool, but the said mainline station has a direct service to London Euston, and both of the aforementioned only differ by one word from two other London Underground stations (Liverpool Street and Euston Square respectively), which, and this is the key point, are on the same line (the Circle).
Even then, you would not have thought that my deliberate illegal move would confer any great advantage - but it was played in a game where Tudor Court Rules have been declared and revoked exactly twice, at a time where the hour and minute are numerically the same (7.07 - your time zone may vary, of course, but as I am in the UK this is valid). In combination with a game where more than 5 unintentional illegal moves have already been played, a Northern Line slowdown in force, a hand of 6 terminuses secured, and Scuba_Ben’s play of Limehouse subsequently, this gives me:
Mornington Crescent.
I was sure someone would spot what I was up to there, but in fact it all worked out perfectly. I thank you.
Dead Cat just might have it, after all.
Does anybody have the current token count? The Liverpool Roundabout technique may or may not hold here, depending on the tokens.
If eir move holds up, then very well played, Dead Cat!
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen McGoohan’s Convergence played in a live (well, more-or-less live) game. I’m posting from work, so I don’t have my full set of references, but I can’t see any faults in Dead Cat’s Convergence from here.
McGoohan’s Convergence. Ah yes, that classic technique. It fell out of favour after all the lines were electrified. I can’t imagine why, it’s still potent (as indeed Dead Cat has shown), and in fact it raised quite a stir at the Old Dominion Friendly weekend a few years back. I remember the uproar over the play ran the whole length of the gaming area. I even remember one man reading loudly from hundred-year-old rulesets, finding discussions of this Convergence that hadn’t been repealed under Mid-Atlantic practice.
Hey wait a minute. That man sounded like a lawyer…
looks askance at Bricker :dubious:
Naaaah, can’t be. Can it?
Wow. That was a new one on me. Outside-the-network considerations like McGoohan’s Convergence are relatively new to me, and I think I have some studying to do. Well-played!
Curses! Foiled by McGoohan’s!
Wait a sec, if we…nah. Tudor in effect.
Congr…hold on!
If we…shoot Northern Line Slow Down.
And Street Fog was lifted earlier, right? That rules out a Traverschinski Reversion, so unless someone else has any ideas, I am in agreement, Dead Cat wins the 2010 SDMB MC Marathon.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we may MAY just see this instant classic written up in the Internet Mornington Crescent Review.
Well played all, very well played.
It’s all part of the great cycle of the game: a line of play demonstrates its worth, it becomes popular, and then everyone is prepared to defend against it. And of course that applies doubly so to a risky maneuver like the Convergence; if it hadn’t gone off perfectly, Dead Cat was facing disqualification, after all. And of course the online setting helps with surprise maneuvers like this one; Dead Cat would have to be a particularly cool customer to pull that off in live play.
Why so silent, Mr. Bricker? Could it be, for once, that you were bested at your own game? Ah, that I have lived to see this day! I will savor my “we apologise for the inconvenience” 20-minute delay this morning.
Well, I think no-one was more surprised by that outcome than I was, to be honest - I’m honoured to have prevailed against such esteemed opposition, it was just a case of being in the right place at the right time. Thanks for a splendid game, all.
I’m trying to swallow my ire and pretend it’s just good sportsmanship I feel.
I concede the win.
But I must say that this is why Internet-hosted games are regarded as a poor-man’s substitute, and why you find so few Internet resources for the game. Has it ever occurred to you, for example, to wonder why we don’t have a web-based move calculator? Why we don’t have Thornton’s, or MC Quarterly, or, hell, even Renaldi’s on line?
In a live game, the timing issue that Dead Cat used you pull off a concededly brilliant McGoohan’s Convergence would have been obvious to all. There would have been a large clock on the wall, and perhaps even an obvious wait or giveaway glance to inform the competitors of the significance of the hour and minute being equal. Most especially, we would have had all competitors be equally able to assess that because all would have been in the same time zone.
I don’t fault Dead Cat – to the contrary, had I thought of it, I would have played it myself, perhaps starting my setup when Edgware Road and the straddle were played. But I think I’d ask for an agreement, in a future Internet game, that all agree to a single effective time zone for the play.
Whacking good play, DC. My bitterness will last only a little longer, I promise. 
Bricker makes a good point - with Internet MC still in relative infancy, I am not aware of a definitive commentary on the niceties having been published at the time of writing. I guess sometimes you have to play a little dirty, though :).
This game is definitely going to go in the archives as something to learn from. Bricker’s right–the dearth of Internet resources, especially on the more obscure topics, is surprising. I wonder whether most people are using pre-Internet resources passed down, along the lines of my Grandfather’s notes? In such a traditional game, that’s not surprising.
Hmm, I regret joining this round late now, seeing as how it was clearly a gathering of players in the classic style. As a matter of fact, internet play is a lively subculture, but not for everyone. One only has to be burned once by a “moves on the Central Line submitted from IP addresses divisible by 24” (I speak of course of RFC 9838, Transport protocols for multi-layered lines connected by escalators) to go running back to Thornton’s for good.
Nowadays, rare is the internet player without an active live display from the Big Ben webcam, underground train positioning, and hotkeys programmed for Covent Garden and Picadilly, at the very least. And, well, I hardly need comment on how Hyde-Park farming has ruined the game for everyone.
It was a pleasure to get back to one’s roots!
“Burned” is hardly the word. I still have nightmares of reviewing the comments to that RFC. (Let’s just say there’s a reason I’ll never moderate a message board.)
Dear God. It’s gotten into the RFCs now? I thought MC was one of the last bastions of the leisurely age.
I will say, ladies and gentleman, that as a rank novice to even observing the sport, this game has been more than instructional. My late grandmother, whose dying wish uttered to me, was “dear, study Mornington Crescent if you ever hope to be civilized,” would be utterly transformed at the interesting play here, most of which has escaped my understanding.
I look forward to more such educational opportunities. Perhaps my grandmother’s leather trunk of papers, locked for the last five years after her death, should be opened in search of guidance along the lines of such as this.