a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by Fantômas
Fantômas  ·  3245 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Mornington Crescent

Oh, by the way, I don't know whether it's true genius or just beginner's luck, but by choosing Vauxhall, a classic though frankly predictable first move, as her extremely unorthodox second move, elizabeth has blocked my progress up the first quadrant I was hoping to dominate by taking King's Cross. In fact, as a result of the Gruntfuttock Amendment (remember - this is the Mousebender Variation with no Double Huffingtons), I have no legal moves other than to redouble myself and hope she makes a mistake.

Therefore, Finsbury Park again.

(See how this works...?)





Fantômas  ·  3244 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A further clarification. Apart from Huffingtons, the worst penalty condition is to be in Nidd. This is a river in Yorkshire which features in every version of the game, and in the beginner's version is assumed to be part of the London Undergound, despite being a long way away and not a railway station or anything resembling one. If you're a novice player who happens to be French and are therefore playing Mornington Croissant, the River Nidd is also part of the Paris Metro.

Being in Nidd is such a long-established rule that it almost makes sense, since the consequence is that you have to miss a turn until you're out of it, which differs from Huffingtons in that you're forbidden to move into Huffingtons on purpose but may do so by mistake, the consequences of which are baffling but temporary. Nidd, on the other hand, means that you get no moves at all until the referee decides you're out of it, which may take some time.

Prior to 1903, since Nidd is technically a London Underground station, deliberately putting yourself in it was a legal move, so long as it was perpendicular to a line between two points, thus making it the shortest distance. However, once the offside rule was introduced at the championship level, the prohibition on moving south of the river, which was meant to apply only to the River Thames, meant that putting yourself in Nidd, and thus in a river a long way north of London, put every other player in Quadruple Huffingtons. It was this glaring loophole which caused five-time world champion Hezekiah Pipstraw to lose the Clothtoucher Cup to a tortoise.

I trust that's all clear. In any case, it has always been an illegal move to put yourself in Nidd on purpose in January, because you'll probably get pneumonia.

elizabeth  ·  3236 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've never heard of that before, it's pretty funny :) Sorry I was such a crappy player but you did broaden my horizons! I'm not a good bullshitter, i would suck at this game...