I’ve “played” sprouts with the co-inventor Michael Patterson. By that I mean we went thru the motions while he completely dominated me. I could never “see” a strategy for it. (Patterson also attended my PhD defense and once got me a drink.)
If you see it as a conflict game like Chess, then you might not find any workable stategies; however, if you treat it like a territorial game like Go or Amazons, then you’ll find some that work. The terminology of the game (each starting point having a total of three liberties, for example) tends to guide me to that viewpoint.
There’s a lovely profile of John Conway here from a couple of years ago, for anyone who’s interested.
I would count myself among those agreeing that Tim Brooke-Taylor is the worst lost so far 
yes, this was exactly my experience playing with Conway. Maybe sometimes I developed a glimmering of strategy, but always way too late for it to do me any good.
He was incredibly inventive. And brilliant, of course.
Maybe americans don’t know him ?
He was one of the Goodies and a friend of the Monty Python crew.
In fact he appearred in “How to Irritate People” with a number of the Pythons.
Alan Garfield, well known character actor.
I remember Garfield from “Cry Uncle”.
The Goodies was never shown here as far as I know. At least anywhere I lived.
I watched the Goodies, it was on after MPFC on our local PBS station. I’ll miss him greatly.
A HIV researcher dies of coronavirus and people are still discussing singers as the most famous people to die of coronavirus: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/obituaries/gita-ramjee-dead-coronavirus.html
The death of medical doctors from COVID-19 and people like Gita Ramjee should attract more attention than singers/actresses/actors etc.
It is truly sad what you are doing here.
It was on our local PBS station in Wisconsin for a brief period in the late '70s (and I remember watcing it a few times), but I don’t think it ever got the exposure in the U.S. that Python did, and I wouldn’t be surprised if most Americans have never heard of the show or the trio.
Perhaps you have a poor grasp of the meaning of the word “famous”?
A very similar thing happened when Mother Theresa died in the same week that Princess Diana died.
It’s “popularity” being mixed up with fame.
So… Add them to this thread? Conway was a mathematician, not a singer, fwiw. I’m sure there’s room here for remembrances of doctors and research scientists.
I have a far better grasp of what famous means. 
It is not my fault you don’t know her. She died and you are engaging a silly polemique with me about that? How shameful and evil this is!
I think perhaps you don’t understand the point of the thread. It’s not about which COVID-19 deaths are most significant or crushing; it’s about which celebrity’s death created the biggest shock, and made people realize how big this pandemic is. As Rock Hudson’s did for AIDS.
The death of this HIV researcher, while important and tragic, doesn’t qualify.
Bernie Rubin, half of Bernie and Phyls furniture chain in New England passed away yesterday. He was on all the TV ads so many people around here would recognize his face and voice.
Oh, that’s sad. I wonder how old he was. I suppose the link probably says…
Apparently not. “Famous” means “known about by many people.” That’s all it means. You may argue that Ramjee should have been more famous, but the fact is that she wasn’t; she was not famous.
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