Mornington Crescent

[Dean Ayass]

Fine, well I am going to crimp the hypotenuse and go from Bank all the way along to Bayswater.

[patiirc]

Damn, tough crowd! With this in mind I shall move invoking Grimlock's Pretender Strategy, which means with the fooning of some sporks I end up right in Chancery Lane

[Up Chuck]

Sorry to noob it up, long-time spectator, first-time player, but I need clarification on something: does this rule set permit me to take St Paul's as a starting move if I jump in at this point, given that it's a location of religious significance, or am I thinking of the discredited Nova Scotia 1996 Anglican by-laws?

[Uncletrunx]

As far as I'm aware, St Pauls is legal under all Commonwealth standard rulesets by agreement under the Bangalore Convention of 1998.

 

Having seen the recent play, it seems most sensible for me to avoid the coming Zone 1 slowdown and the inherant risk of Nidd by changing quadrant. With that in mind,

 

Shepherd's Bush

 

Edit for lack of manual dexterity: Registered with the IAMCP at 12.26 on Feb 10th 2011

[matbro1984]

I was not pleased to find myself subject to the Whiteley-Vorderman coin toss prior to this afternoon's move. To the uninitiated, this is a rarely-enforced rule under the 1982 addendum which states that the zone designation of your next move is subject to a coin toss. Heads designating letters and tails designating numbers. Unfortunately for me, it was heads. As such I can only pick from the oft-forgotten zones A B C and D at the northernmost tip of the Metropolitan line. So, purely for proximity's sake I chose zone A. Fine you might think, were it not for the fact that as a holder of the Senna-Zoolander card, I am obliged to proceed until I hit the buffers, never turning left in the process.

 

So there you go folks. I'm in fucking Watford. Even when I do try to formulate my next play, the fast metropolitan line train goes from Amersham, so Im swimming through fucking treacle on this one.

[Daaaaaad!]

I'm still in Winnipeg from the last game, but in three rounds I can return to Heathrow to begin again. I'm not out of it yet!

[Mike Castle]

As a brand new player entering the game during the third game held in any venue (I'm counting the UKFF as the venue in this case), I am entitled to make an early bid for Mornington Crescent itself on the basis that I use the rules created by Jason Thompson for the tournament held in Wembley back in 1967. This, as I'm sure you are all aware, requires me to roll three dice to determine whether I am successfull in my bid to get to Mornington Crescent. Now I had recorded the dice rolls as evidence that I wasn't cheating on the off chance that my attempt did, in fact, work.

 

Unfortunately, not only was I unsuccessful in my attempt, but I have wound up in a worse position than I would have been with a normal move at this stage. As you are well aware, the first die dictates the direction, as I rolled a 1 I have in fact gone in the opposite direction to where I began, this was a bad start for me. The second die in this situation therefore dictates distance. Of course it was at this stage I roll the 6, giving me the maximum possible distance to travel on that line. The third and final dice dictates what happens when I arrive at my destination. I rolled a 3.

 

What this means in laymans terms is that I have to spend the next two turns in the bogs at Skegness.

[Chris B]

I got bounced back to Euston, but that allowed me to take the northern line to...

 

Mornington Crescent.

 

I can't believe you all left that so open.

[Up Chuck]

I think you're forgetting something, Chris! Mike's in the bogs at Skegness, which will, under the precedent of Howard vs Gilmour vs Richardson in the semis of Halifax Rotary Club's Triple Elimination Grand Prix of '87, mean that a bunch of small holidaying children will have dashed out of the bogs screaming with their trousers round their ankles, and will have, via the Midland Mainline connection at St Pancras, infested all Northern Line stations, including Mornington Crescent. Now, this doesn't prohibit you moving to the station per se, but it does mean that you'll encounter one of the screeching semi-trouserless children if you do.

 

So, basically, you can opt to either not win the game, or look like a bit of a nonce. Up to you.

[Uncletrunx]

Swift and effective play sir, if a little expedient. Like watching Arsenal in the early '90s. I refer, of course, to the 3rd Woolwich Arsenal Convocation, where side shunts, diagonals and play outside the recognised quadrants was prohibited, interlinear play was disregarded, all randomisers were decided by a simple coin flip and players were subject to a 30 second time limit in which to make their decisions. The purists, as you can imagine, declared it to be tantamount to heresy and denounced the Convocation as "the death of the game as we know it."

 

Their prophecy of doom was, as we now know, somewhat premature as the longer form of the game survives very much intact. The short form, while useful for initiating new players, children and those with short attention spans, remains far less widely played than the traditional formats and sadly, the negative publicity is said to have contributed to the suicide of the convocation organiser (The fated Dr Royston Herringbald O'Flaherty III) in 2003. I personally believe that spending 4 years in Nidd was a more significant contributor to his demise but as the politicians say, "I would say that, wouldn't I?"

 

Edit: I hadn't spotted the possible allegations of deviancy. This was also, as we all know, said to have contributed to the suicide of Dr Royston Herringbald O'Flaherty III, although I didn't mention it out of politeness.

[Up Chuck]

Edit: I hadn't spotted the possible allegations of deviancy. This was also, as we all know, said to have contributed to the suicide of Dr Royston Herringbald O'Flaherty III, although I didn't mention it out of politeness.

 

A tragedy indeed, and just one example of the difficulties brought up by the Nova Scotia rule set's tendency towards vivid imagery, which is why I prefer the formality of British Columbia rules myself. Anyway, I'm fascinated to see if our Chris has the mettle to a) face down what is informally known in the north-east US as Feinstein's Conundrum, and b) put up with the lifelong stigma that comes with a paedo-y victory.

[Chris B]

Edit: I hadn't spotted the possible allegations of deviancy. This was also, as we all know, said to have contributed to the suicide of Dr Royston Herringbald O'Flaherty III, although I didn't mention it out of politeness.

 

A tragedy indeed, and just one example of the difficulties brought up by the Nova Scotia rule set's tendency towards vivid imagery, which is why I prefer the formality of British Columbia rules myself. Anyway, I'm fascinated to see if our Chris has the mettle to a) face down what is informally known in the north-east US as Feinstein's Conundrum, and b) put up with the lifelong stigma that comes with a paedo-y victory.

 

You've made a simple, schoolboy error there. I suspect it's your eagerness to try and either downplay my victory or to try and vilify me as a result. It's rather ungentlemanly play. My move was taking advantage, certainly, but not in a way that invokes the Feinstein conundrum - for one very simple reason.

 

Under the Azzarello GN rule of '94, the Feinstein conundrum ONLY exists on Fridays. You've waltzed in here, and ignored the time that I actually played, confusing it with the time that you read. Bad play and bad manners, sir.

[Up Chuck]

Edit: I hadn't spotted the possible allegations of deviancy. This was also, as we all know, said to have contributed to the suicide of Dr Royston Herringbald O'Flaherty III, although I didn't mention it out of politeness.

 

A tragedy indeed, and just one example of the difficulties brought up by the Nova Scotia rule set's tendency towards vivid imagery, which is why I prefer the formality of British Columbia rules myself. Anyway, I'm fascinated to see if our Chris has the mettle to a) face down what is informally known in the north-east US as Feinstein's Conundrum, and b) put up with the lifelong stigma that comes with a paedo-y victory.

 

You've made a simple, schoolboy error there. I suspect it's your eagerness to try and either downplay my victory or to try and vilify me as a result. It's rather ungentlemanly play. My move was taking advantage, certainly, but not in a way that invokes the Feinstein conundrum - for one very simple reason.

 

Under the Azzarello GN rule of '94, the Feinstein conundrum ONLY exists on Fridays. You've waltzed in here, and ignored the time that I actually played, confusing it with the time that you read. Bad play and bad manners, sir.

 

Oh goodness, shocking mistake on my part. No bad intentions whatsoever, simply a desire to make sure all rules and possibilities are followed through correctly, but I suppose in my zeal to ensure correct play, I ended up overlooking a vital detail. Schoolboy error indeed, and also an example of why I feel Nova Scotia rules simply don't follow the spirit of the game - the imagery and tangents that they encourage have lead me to behave, as you said, in a most ungentlemanly fashion. I feel rather dirty. Please accept both my humblest apologies for my mistake and my sincerest congratulations for a shrewd and courageous victory.

[Uncletrunx]

I think we should put the episode behind us and begin the next session with no delays. As such, using a standard (and hopefully uncontroversial) opening gambit;

 

Paddington

[Up Chuck]

Agreed, I'd rather forget my massive faux pas there, it was rather embarrassing. I'll jump right in with:

 

Finsbury Park

 

...noting that Chatsworth's Three-Station Reversal Bump, which normally applies to Victoria Line stations with overground connections in non-tournament games played Monday-Friday (as established in his memoirs in 1962, but interestingly not popularised until the 1976 Glasgow Free Play Fayre) is invalid under Nova Scotia rules (which I presume we're sticking with for the time being) due to the subsection eliminating Bumps, Twists or Pitfalls for anything other than disciplinary purposes (D. Palmerston, Nova Scotia Rules Summarised, Chapter 6: Oddities and Stipulations, in The Canadian Mornington Crescent Journal, Vol. 78 Pt. 3, 1997 reprint).