I've been a big-time cheater all my life, at least in the wonderful world of games. I've never cheated on my taxes or on my partner, and the closest I've come to cheating my employer has been taking the odd pen home. Well, I'm not so sure my employers would actually have been opposed to taking a disposable pen home on occasion. They weren't skinflints, although the quality of the coffee in the office kitchen left a lot to be desired. I don't know why working people settle for rotgut when it comes to coffee. Good beans don't cost that much more than bad. I can get a pound of Sumatran for something like $7. Does that break the bank? I don't think so.
But I digress. I want to describe a specific episode of my cheating. It was brought to mind when I was winning an online chess game. I defeated my opponent in fourteen moves--checkmate, boom-yow! He never saw it coming. The words that came to my mind were, "Good night, sweet prince!" Those were the exact words used when finishing me off in Trade Wars about twenty years ago.
I don't know how many people remember Trade Wars. It was a text-based role-playing game of the BBS era set in a space-faring intergalactic civilization where one played as a merchant and was allotted a number of turns. The player visited planets buying ore or other goods and selling at a profit. Other traders would attack if encountered, because the goods of the vanquished were forfeited to the victor. One player in particular was a rampaging terror, wasting other traders, including me. He had a vast empire and was too powerful to eliminate, even if one were to find his hideaway.
My hacker nature got the better of me when I stumbled upon a system error that dropped me directly into DOS. I knew enough commands to load the Trade Wars Editor and give myself an enormous number of credits. Armed thus, I raised a vast army of ships so as to dominate the game. I tracked down the main player who had been lording it over every one else, killed him and took all his credits and other possessions. He would have to start over! I chuckled about that and called it quits for the day.
The next day when I logged on, I noticed that I was no longer able to load the Trade Wars Editor. When I logged into the game, I discovered I had been killed by the player I had killed the day before. He sent me a message that said, "GOOD NIGHT SWEET PRINCE!!!!!" It turns out that the System Operator had at least suspected my intrusion and had awarded my enemy even more credits than I had given myself. So, he was now invulnerable. Curse those tattle-tale system logs! I had to quit that Trade Wars Universe.
The moral of the story? There is no moral. I just like that line, "Good night, sweet prince!" It comes from Shakespeare and was spoken during a murder. Perhaps Macbeth?
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Thanks for Banning Me
In retrospect, I am delighted to be banned from FICS.
There are numerous alternatives for playing chess online. By forcing me out of FICS, the admin did me a favor. I found a better community, easier to use, with many more players and a better designed interface.
I would probably never have left FICS had I not been banned, because I'm a creature of habit and had even become an enthusiast, which is one of my faults, reducing my level of objectivity. I had evaluated FICS as being much better than it is. I liked it so much that I was mentioning it to all my chessplaying friends. I had even added a link to FICS, just a few days before being banned. What irony--and foolishness on my part. All of that is over now, a mistake in the past, now corrected.
I can't think of a better Christmas present than to be banned from FICS, which requires the use of software that has not been updated since 2007. Yet the worst shortcoming is an obtuse admin, incapable or unwilling to communicate with others. I say let the trolls play with the trolls. Perhaps they will find solutions for one another. Players that deport themselves like gentlemen can find a better community with just a little searching. I confess I'm reluctant to offer a link to my new chess community. It seems bad luck. Once bitten, twice shy.
There are numerous alternatives for playing chess online. By forcing me out of FICS, the admin did me a favor. I found a better community, easier to use, with many more players and a better designed interface.
I would probably never have left FICS had I not been banned, because I'm a creature of habit and had even become an enthusiast, which is one of my faults, reducing my level of objectivity. I had evaluated FICS as being much better than it is. I liked it so much that I was mentioning it to all my chessplaying friends. I had even added a link to FICS, just a few days before being banned. What irony--and foolishness on my part. All of that is over now, a mistake in the past, now corrected.
I can't think of a better Christmas present than to be banned from FICS, which requires the use of software that has not been updated since 2007. Yet the worst shortcoming is an obtuse admin, incapable or unwilling to communicate with others. I say let the trolls play with the trolls. Perhaps they will find solutions for one another. Players that deport themselves like gentlemen can find a better community with just a little searching. I confess I'm reluctant to offer a link to my new chess community. It seems bad luck. Once bitten, twice shy.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Sisyphus
I am reminded of the myth of Sisyphus. Sometimes when I work on something intensely, after hundreds or thousands of hours, someone thwarts my efforts, so that my efforts backfire. This is seldom accomplished through intellectual means.
I'm a good chess player. I don't know what my USCF ranking would be, but I realize that masters are much better at the game. I'm best at slow games, around twenty to thirty minutes, considered slow these days. When I was a boy, games were not timed and could last for one or two hours. My brother or I might spend ten, fifteen, twenty minutes studying a single move. I fare poorly at blitz chess, because I become fascinated by positions and want to analyze every detail, and then I run out of time. I resent having to rush through things. I like to ponder until I find the perfect solution. But blitz does have the advantage of brevity. Perhaps it serves to quicken one's calculating speed. I'm not sure. I don't think I've gotten any faster, but more likely slower as I've aged.
I spent hundreds of hours mastering an unusual chess opening, learning just about every facet of it, only to be banned from the internet chess server for what seems to me a spurious rationale pulled out of thin air. My brother had visited for Christmas, and I was so enthusiastic about the chess server that I showed him how it worked, even registering him and letting him play from my Internet connection. Such enthusiasm I had. He was the one who had taught me chess at the age of four, so I thought to repay him by teaching him about the internet chess server that I had recently discovered. I spent an hour teaching him how it worked. This was supposedly (I mean I do not believe it) interpreted by an admin as violating a rule of one person having two accounts, because it was from the same IP address. But there were two people, not one. I was interrupted in the middle of a game in which I was winning, disconnected and banned without any warning.
I had been polite to all the players and even in those cases where the players were not polite to me, I just quit playing them. I had spent months learning and perfecting an unusual opening that had given me great success. I think that my unusual opening, judged unsound by many but refuted by none, was the ultimate reason I was banned. I have noticed that some chessplayers are contemptuous of any opening that is not being currently played by one or preferably all the grandmasters. The chess world is hierarchical, the lower ranks being deferential to the best players. Some players believe we should only do what the grandmasters say to do. They read articles written by grandmasters and copy their ideas. Their play consists of rote memorization of the products of other minds. When I break them out of book, they go to pieces. Some players immediately abort the game on the very first move when they observe my opening, because they have no adequate response and can't be troubled to find one.
A few days before my ban, I defeated the wrong person, a connected person, who was angry that I had played my opening. He said it was unsound, and grandmasters didn't play it, and he didn't want to play it either, and he even told me to "go f--- myself," twice, in case I didn't process it the first time. He was either the admin himself or friends with the admin, I think, because he demonstrated a mastery of the network's technical side. It is too much of a coincidence that I am banned so soon after this nasty unprovoked altercation from a player whose very arrogance suggests he was indeed the admin. So I am banned because I play an unusual opening. This fits in with the other expectations I have developed of society.
I suppose it doesn't matter. Chess is a just a game of limited value and minority appeal. I do not have a friend who plays as well as I do. That is one of the problems with chess. Getting good at it is a double-edged sword. I am reminded of my old friend from school. At first he beat me two out of three games. A few weeks later, I beat him half the time, and that was the perfect scenario, but I kept improving. Next I was beating him almost every game, and then he stopped playing me forever, because he hated losing, but did not want to invest the time required to get better at chess, which in retrospect was a prudent choice on his part that I wish I had followed.
If I had my life to live over, I would have learned a musical instrument instead of a nerdy game that appeals to soldierly types, often men of narrow interests and deep prejudices. Music opens up a world of beauty. It allows one to connect with other beings in a way that is not possible through chess. Chess is a blood sport, of limited appeal except to warriors. But one is what one is. I suppose I would have made a good lieutenant. It is good I have not been in war in this lifetime--good for me and merciful to the foes I otherwise would have encountered.
I'm a good chess player. I don't know what my USCF ranking would be, but I realize that masters are much better at the game. I'm best at slow games, around twenty to thirty minutes, considered slow these days. When I was a boy, games were not timed and could last for one or two hours. My brother or I might spend ten, fifteen, twenty minutes studying a single move. I fare poorly at blitz chess, because I become fascinated by positions and want to analyze every detail, and then I run out of time. I resent having to rush through things. I like to ponder until I find the perfect solution. But blitz does have the advantage of brevity. Perhaps it serves to quicken one's calculating speed. I'm not sure. I don't think I've gotten any faster, but more likely slower as I've aged.
I spent hundreds of hours mastering an unusual chess opening, learning just about every facet of it, only to be banned from the internet chess server for what seems to me a spurious rationale pulled out of thin air. My brother had visited for Christmas, and I was so enthusiastic about the chess server that I showed him how it worked, even registering him and letting him play from my Internet connection. Such enthusiasm I had. He was the one who had taught me chess at the age of four, so I thought to repay him by teaching him about the internet chess server that I had recently discovered. I spent an hour teaching him how it worked. This was supposedly (I mean I do not believe it) interpreted by an admin as violating a rule of one person having two accounts, because it was from the same IP address. But there were two people, not one. I was interrupted in the middle of a game in which I was winning, disconnected and banned without any warning.
I had been polite to all the players and even in those cases where the players were not polite to me, I just quit playing them. I had spent months learning and perfecting an unusual opening that had given me great success. I think that my unusual opening, judged unsound by many but refuted by none, was the ultimate reason I was banned. I have noticed that some chessplayers are contemptuous of any opening that is not being currently played by one or preferably all the grandmasters. The chess world is hierarchical, the lower ranks being deferential to the best players. Some players believe we should only do what the grandmasters say to do. They read articles written by grandmasters and copy their ideas. Their play consists of rote memorization of the products of other minds. When I break them out of book, they go to pieces. Some players immediately abort the game on the very first move when they observe my opening, because they have no adequate response and can't be troubled to find one.
A few days before my ban, I defeated the wrong person, a connected person, who was angry that I had played my opening. He said it was unsound, and grandmasters didn't play it, and he didn't want to play it either, and he even told me to "go f--- myself," twice, in case I didn't process it the first time. He was either the admin himself or friends with the admin, I think, because he demonstrated a mastery of the network's technical side. It is too much of a coincidence that I am banned so soon after this nasty unprovoked altercation from a player whose very arrogance suggests he was indeed the admin. So I am banned because I play an unusual opening. This fits in with the other expectations I have developed of society.
I suppose it doesn't matter. Chess is a just a game of limited value and minority appeal. I do not have a friend who plays as well as I do. That is one of the problems with chess. Getting good at it is a double-edged sword. I am reminded of my old friend from school. At first he beat me two out of three games. A few weeks later, I beat him half the time, and that was the perfect scenario, but I kept improving. Next I was beating him almost every game, and then he stopped playing me forever, because he hated losing, but did not want to invest the time required to get better at chess, which in retrospect was a prudent choice on his part that I wish I had followed.
If I had my life to live over, I would have learned a musical instrument instead of a nerdy game that appeals to soldierly types, often men of narrow interests and deep prejudices. Music opens up a world of beauty. It allows one to connect with other beings in a way that is not possible through chess. Chess is a blood sport, of limited appeal except to warriors. But one is what one is. I suppose I would have made a good lieutenant. It is good I have not been in war in this lifetime--good for me and merciful to the foes I otherwise would have encountered.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Swapping in Scrabble
One of the better strategies I had forgotten about in Scrabble is to swap tiles often. Most games at the higher levels are determined by who gets the wild card and "s" tiles. If there is not a good move to play, then it is often helpful to swap out. This is especially true for players that are behind in score, and a better idea earlier in the game, when the wild cards and "s" tiles have not been played.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Reserve Scrabble
Reserve Scrabble, my latest idea, rectifies the problem of luck in the game of Scrabble. Every player knows that whosoever draws both wildcards will win nine times out of ten, assuming equal skill levels among players. In Reserve Scrabble, each player begins the game with the usual seven-tile hand and a reserve of two or more tiles. The reserve, which may be tapped whenever needed, contains a wildcard and an "s". (No wildcards or "s" tiles remain in the deck.) The difficult tiles, "j", "z", "x", "q", "c", and "v", are randomly distributed to the players' reserves and are not to be found in the deck. Thus, each player receives the same number of difficult tiles, although different ones. The problem of too many vowels or too many consonants lessens in severity, since every player has a wildcard and an "s" at his disposal.
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