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Comment by tetris11 | Hacker News Reader

Everyone forgets that the original rules were based on the idea that stations that had k=3 shared nearest neighbours couldn't be used, and that adjacency was measured by DBSCAN clustering, instead of Leiden partitions that the kids use now.

The game has gotten lazy since I were a lad.

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The problem is now computer software like Stockwell exists that can tell you in real time what the ‘correct’ move is, kids have learned a sort of mechanical version of the game with no creativity or flair. The meta has just become always straddle, and progress southwards on odd traversals. If you watch random Crescent games streaming on Twitch you’ll wind up watching two anime avatars circling round Kensington until one of them’s able to take swabbage and expand the domain. So dull.

I thought you couldn't take swabbage on the Circle and District lines, so that excludes South Kensington and Kensington High Street. Kensington Olympia is on the Overground, which is out of bounds, and is only accessible on the District line on the weekends and SOME public holidays.

So if you're seeing people on Twitch taking swabbage on Kensington Olympia in tournament play (and we know tournaments are on Saturdays only) then you know they're deepfakes.

Stay safe out there.

See, this here is the -real- problem: prescriptivist tendencies in those players of a certain age who insist that, say, the Coltonshire Maneuver’s success must be determined by the application of what is rightfully analogous to the reading of chicken entrails. Read the room! The shift is towards rightbottom. LET IT SHIFT. You can always deploy cannons at High Barnet to prevent map-bleed.

Map-bleed has only become worse since Devon Etiquette became fashionable, and so now we all end up racing towards Monument to prevent swabbage, reverse swabbage and District Line Flush. It's ruined the game at the higher level IMO.

I think if as a playing community we took inspiration from the Wessex Variant, accepted the Waterloo & City amendment therein, and perhaps - and I know this is brave - moved with the times and allowed Overground at Peak, we could stop this nonsense.

The social media influencers will never allow it though. They've built their moat.. smh

Sure granddad, that's all very well if you're playing the classical time limit - but with the rise of fast-paced online play, the old way just isn't scalable. The big providers just can't afford it, so long as everyone expects their games to be hosted for free.

And so what if kids these days are playing a slightly different game - can't we celebrate the fact they're playing at all, instead of engaging in this elitist gatekeeping?

Without that “gatekeeping” the game would have descended into confused chaos, with no clear rules long ago. Maybe it’s time for change, but we should be grateful that there is still a game to play.

I love that you're so passionate, and I hope the game continues for future generations, flying-car based addons, or not!

I wonder what old school international grandmasters like Theydon Bois (France), Pim Li Ko (China) and Will Esden-Green (UK) would think of the modern game... We've lost the creativity, bravery and elegance of such players, from a time when taking part was more important than winning.

I've got a lot of hope for the Google DeepMind attempt to solve Mornington Crescent to add creativity back into the game, like they did for Go.

The problem is that Google seem to be struggling to get the computing power and algos together to deploy nib effectively and to square out the down flows when dealing with Lancashire Pushback - which you must have in a modern game playing against a top player. It's one of those things that seems still out of grasp of ML...

It was rumoured that an early form of the game was played and researched by AM Turing in the 1930’s. Work had been nearly completed to show that good play was undecidable, but it was abandoned to focus on the much easier ENGIMA problem. This was before the modern rules and the addition of the Elizabeth line, leading to much expanded game space.

I think that only came in once the signalling went metric? Earl's Court (last time I looked) still had some originals. It's always been shades of grey.

> It's always been shades of grey.

For home games, and perhaps for even local leagues, sure. But the IMCF (the International Mornington Crescent Federation, not the International Mornington Crescent Foundation) has been clear on this since the '86 upset.

Pardon the snark. But international games always start from St Pancras (and Waterloo once upon a time). If “home games” had that luxury we probably wouldn’t even be discussing this.

You're neglecting the extensive theory which has developed around the "Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, and 3" opener. Go west, young competitor!

London City Airport is the safer first move with the international rules. Heathrow risks the opponent using the Lord's Gambit to bisect the home team's quarter.

As far as I’m aware this is all still untested theory? Much less chance of challenge if you stay within Zone 6. There’s still a lot of creativity to be had.

Is that actually true? I thought it was originally played with the Havershorm criteria, and graph theory wasn't a big thing until the Oxford Five got involved in formalizing rules?

Have I been misled?

Check Mordent and Ravensworth.

Yeah, the Djikstra Gambit put a stop to that line of play long ago.

Not a total Moorgate, but certainly rare these days.

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