posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 2:15 AM by Endie

Mornington Crescent

While looking idly through my old usenet postings - real vanity googling - I found this relatively recent (2001) one.  I suppose I should have posted it on April 1st.  If anyone doesn't understand the game "Mornington Crescent", then a quick look on google or Amazon will find numerous guides for beginners, although do bear in mind that any versions making reference to the old bengali Shifting Defence are now strictly non-canonical.  Use those at your own risk, as many MC tables will tend to react badly to their appearance.

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Mornington Crescent OpenMC release 0.1a update 

For those of you who've been emailing me about the project progress, here is an update on the status of the open-source Mornington Crescent Port to a Java version.

To those of you who have asked, yes, it will require the Swing API, and it uses JDBC for data-storage.

A distributed version running as a servlet on our server with a thin client will be the next stage of the project, and we'll make an announcement when we are ready to accept coding and design docs for that step.  We're all a bit snowed under with work on the station rendering engine right now.

We're very sorry that Joss Stevens felt he had to leave after the decision to stick closely to the Strict London set of rules: he felt that his OpenStation API would be better implemented as part of the BSD 3.54 Mornington release.  So long as he doesn't join Richard Stallman's Gnu/Hurd MC project, we don't mind!  Best of luck, Joss.

As one door closes, another opens, and we're very happy to welcome Ally Davidson on board.  He'll be taking over the tricky Reverse Shift implementations from Joss, as well as taking some of the heat off me in the Kernel area as we move towards a firm release date.

Apologies to those of you caught up in the unfortunate aftermath of the alpha testing of the game AI.  We've spoken to Norton and Symantec, and they've both released patches which should prevent anything similar occuring again.  The propagation of this little blighter in the field was an unpleasant consequence of the shared S-Move algorithms we'd used.  Again, apologies to those of you who lost data, but it's a reminder to us all: always back up, and never open attachments you don't trust!

One final Call For Submissions.  We've been unable to determine the details of Toksvig's Triple Cross manuevre, as used in Sunday's game on Radio 4. This one has raised a bit of controversy.  Does anyone have a copy of the IMC committee ruling on whether the shift must always start with Hatton Cross and end in Brent Cross?

Many Thanks
Keith Harrison
e...@softhome.net - OpenMC Project Co-ordinator

Comments

# re: Mornington Crescent

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 2:37 PM by StateOfGrace
Ok, I'll start. Finchley ruleset, no crossing and no double-dipping before the jibe.

Kensal Rise

# re: Mornington Crescent

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 2:52 PM by Endie
Kensal Rise? An opening play on National Rail?!? Aren't you an aggressive little tyke, then? This isn't Simon posting under a pseudonym, is it?

Anyhow, I'll yield space for time:

Finchley Road & Frognal

# re: Mornington Crescent

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 3:46 PM by StateOfGrace
No, not Simon, just me.

And I'll play:

Mudchute

Not what you expected is it?

# re: Mornington Crescent

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 3:57 PM by Endie
To be honest, the aggressively modernist play style denoted by your opening suggested an early bridging slant to the DLR. Easily swatted away:

Chancery Lane

[note to anyone unused to the Finchley ruleset: Chancery Lane places Stateofgrace 'en Tarif' which, of course, strictly limits him to a crosswise move]

# re: Mornington Crescent

Thursday, April 20, 2006 12:33 AM by Rapido
I'll jump in here and take a seat...Kings Cross

# re: Mornington Crescent

Thursday, April 20, 2006 9:18 AM by Endie
A sensibly cautious opening move, but one which does rather dig Stateofgrace out of a hole.

Hendon Central

# re: Mornington Crescent

Thursday, April 20, 2006 2:39 PM by Tom
Which nicely permits me to use the Picadilly crosshuffle:

Cyprus

# re: Mornington Crescent

Thursday, April 20, 2006 5:05 PM by Endie
Oooh, within the Finchley rules - *barely* - but how can you look yourself in the face after something like that?

Leciester Square, I say, and I don't feel even slightly bad about it.