Wait - has Bladdersby & Withers, 2010 completed the ratification process? I thought we were still waiting on word from the Greater Swindon Mornington Crescent Society.
Come on, guys, this is a non-ranking match, right? Quibbling over a quadruple Paddington is hardly sporting, particularly in a month ending in “r”. Having said that, the move is unquestionably doubtful, and I think we should accept lynne-42’s kind offer to gazump over to Liverpool Street. The continuation from Liverpool Street in this position is troublesome, and since various pitfalls can await any normal response, I think I will transpose to Gunnersbury, picking up all three of ianzin’s blots.
Transposing to a Military Parade has it’s difficulties, but with escalator work at King’s Cross and the Circle line running smoothly Widdershins, I’m going to give it a go:
Arsenal
Oh no, that introduces the Piccadilly Line Confinements. Did you really mean to do that? Have you some plan in mind that I can’t see? I’ll play the only choice I have: Piccadilly Circus.
lynne-42 allows me to drop all my Gold Transfer Tokens on London Bridge . Not exactly a clever move with Ruislips blind, but since we’re non-ranked, I’d like to explore some of the possibilities inherent in a Dominions Declined midgame. We so rarely see a DD anymore, it having fallen out of favor when Gandhi and Nehru stopped playing MC after the '47 Independence, but I am in an odd mood.
(For help on a DD gambit - see the article in the '35 New Delhi MC Annual by Gordonsmith-Highwater. It’s most enlightening.)
It’s the tail end of rush hour over here, and with substantial track work announced today for the next Federal holiday (usable in the Yank games in place of bank holidays), I can only go as far as Tower Gateway. I think that puts us back on the Circle line, or at least close to it, so there is the possibility of transitioning into a Dominions Gambit Repeated. It depends on whether B&W (2010) pp. 816-825 was ratified as published, or whether ɹoɹɹǝ s,ɹǝʇuıɹd ɐ sɐ pǝʇɹǝʌuı sɐʍ uoıʇɔǝs ǝɹıʇuǝ ǝɥʇ.
Looks like I’m a bit late for the game. Sorry about that, but I just had to finish Gregoriyev’s 1958 Йекатеринбург опен: морнингтон цресцент (I’ve been searching for it for years!) and how well his advice fits here: The DD gambit moebius loop problem under Picadelly confinements (as brought into play by lynne-42 and Wargamer) can actually be circumvented quite easily by instigating an extended Johnson-Botwinoff token shift: In all its simplistic beauty (Gregoriyev 1959:342b):
Harlesden
Wow.
Just… wow.
Chancery lane? Nope, blocked because London Bridge is on the Jubilee Line. Temple? No, because London Bridge is ALSO on the Northern Line. Camden Town? Legal, but MC in one, so no thank you.
London Bridge is a damned fine move. Harlseden almost inevitable, actually.
I’ll play Marble Arch, vulnerable. (How true that phrase is, eh?)
Bricker, did you miss my play? Camden Town would not have had MC in one. Five and three-quarters possibly, but definitely not one.
Well spotted, Scuba_Ben. And Bricker, allow me to recommend Hawthorpe & Srikanth’s excellent and - relatively speaking - inexpensive Mornington Crescent Endgame Analysis - An Introduction to Turnstile Tactics (foreword by J.L. Rheinhardt). Pages 334-871 has an extensive sample play (a classic from the Zulminster am Zee-tournament) that I’m sure you will find illuminating.
You must have missed Dead Cat’s play of Gunnersbury. It was indeed looking like you could have had it, if not for Bricker’s brilliant move.
This puts coppers down, allowing me to play South Harrow.
Check ffitt-ffinney (1923), if you doubt its legality.
Wapping
Wapping in a Dominion Declined leads to Park Royal, with all it possibilities. Espicially when I call Stirrups. The player who is current on his Groomley will note the opportunities to claim Maus Magill’s coppers. But even though some might say I give away too much, in an Amicaise Internationale, as we have here, the sporting thing to do is to allow others to profit.
Just wonderering…does this play mean:
- Wapping
- Park Royal
- ???
- Profit!
Well, call us the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, if you wish. Although we’ve never been admitted into a major league I’m surprised more of you haven’t heard of us and our many sharp players; did you know the great L.W. Wain once captained our team? I’d love to tell you all about some of our greatest matches, but as you’re smack in the middle of a tense match-up of your own, I’ll wait till one of you has the time to pour me a wee dram of Scottish malt. You can hear about the day Todor Karakolev his own self showed up to play in a charity game. He was in tip-top form, even executing that Hammersmith-Paddington double loop for which he was so famous, yet still lost to our Bethlem champion.
All these many years many later, I still remember the expression on Todor’s face when our own champion said “double hassocks, reverse stirrups to London Bridge and I’ll take all the change on Free Parking”. The Bohemian Master stared without blinking for a full minute and then extended his hand in congratulations.
(This was all before Korakolev retired. After that sudden retirement with all the scandal whose sordid details you’ve all heard too much of (and mostly wrongly) he came to play for the Bethlam Residents’ First Team, but he was a broken man by then, and would wail and sob whenever some newcomer or sadist played “East Putney.”)
Bugger. I did miss that. I could have played a trifecta of Tower Gateway to Poplar to London City Airport, as I would not have been limited to a short track on my next move. (At least per Preakness local custom since 1998.) And then if we acknowledge the customary plays in Addison Road (the local version of MC), victory would have been within my reach.
As the game now stands, I think I see where Wargamer is going; it seems to be a repeat of the semi-qualifiers at the City of London Open 1903. I can sidetrack eir play with Sudbury Town, restricting moves to wheelchair-accessible stations (as per the 2004 revisions at the City Open).
Then I play four red tokens into the main pot. Any takers?
New Cross Gate for an East London Line transfer. I’ll exchange two Green Tokens for the four Red Tokens of Scuba_Ben’s in the main pot. It may be purest folly to do so, but I think I’m on the verge here. The verge of what, however, is what remains to be seen.
Four red tokens draws the obvious response Redbridge.
I didn’t miss it. I think you may be missing the import of Adelstrop → Gunnersbury, played with three blots picked up by the worthy Dead Cat. So strops are set northbound, and that opens anyone who has previously played a Bakerloo, Central, District, or Northern Line, or anyone who’s laid tokens down or played a Travelcard Zone 2 station, to play MC. See, e.g., Jubilee Line Extension Finishes, Vol IV, “How I Lost to a Punter,” the first-person account by Charles Entville after his defeat at the Peckham Library open call event in 2004.
Now, you could have gone, say, Tower Gateway, waited for Poplar, and then used London City Airport or Osterly. But we’re past that now.
We’ve already discussed this issue: New Cross Gate is now a London Overground Station, and so is no longer available for play.