IdiotVig

It's interesting that no one agreeing on any analogies is somewhat analogous to system agreements/full disclosure itself. The analogies are attempting to take a broad, complex system of statements, and boil it down into something understandable and manageable itself. And, as we've seen, despite best efforts to describe something complex in a simple set of statements, ambiguity still remains. I don't want to choose sides, as I think the discussion (vitriol and all) has been fascinating. However, if it's difficult to come to an agreement on a proper analogy, then it certainly must be difficult to 1) explain unusual/complex systems, 2) understand them as an opponent, 3) synthesize the information and come up with an appropriate counter.

I'm sidetracking this - and it could continue to get sidetracked too quickly - but I played every session the last time the summer nationals were in Washington, DC. It was incorrectly reported in the last bulletin that I played 41 sessions - I played 42 straight. Twice, thanks to a fast pairs event, I played five sets in one day. On one of these days, I played a 24-board side game at 9, two 26-board fast pairs events, a 10-table side game at 7:30 (27 boards), and in the midnights...well, that was the one day they ran a midnight Swiss instead of a KO, so I was forced to play all 24. That's 127 boards in a day, which probably won't be outdone (thank you very much, side game). I hadn't even stayed in the host hotel - friends had rented out a house in DuPont Circle, so it was an early Metro in, and a cab back every night. Sadly, while I kept hand histories and a brief journal including notes from every session, these were lost earlier in the year to a basement flood. My friends keep telling me that's reason to do it again. -Brad