[gwnn]

32519, on 2012-June-22, 05:01, said:

Listening to the voice commentary (Roland Wald, David Bird and Graham Osborne) for match 23: England versus Italy, one of them stated that the European Championships was considered to be the toughest tournament to win. Tougher than the Bermuda Bowl or anything the USA has to offer.

If Italy ends up as the winners, it must be the Mafia controlling the dealing machines (not the Free Masons, unless the Mafia are also Free Masons).

Good point. They made all chess Grandmasters play the Sicilian defence so I don't see why they couldn't control the dealing machines too. The question of which tournament is toughest to win is always fun to debate but it is impossible to tell (What is tougher, playing 100,000 boards against GIBs or 1000 boards against Meckwell?).

[blackshoe]

You don't understand. The Freemasons control the Mafia.

[Statto]

Zelandakh, on 2012-June-19, 03:28, said:

I like complexity because it allows me to trade a little memory use for "better" judgement which would otherwise take years to develop.

I dislike 'complexity' for the same reasons. Playing a system with some flexibility aka hand-waviness encourages development of judgement. I would not recommend a 'rigid' system based entirely on evaluation mechanisms a short-cut. Though of course it is helpful to partner to evaluate what you may have...

[blackshoe]

Statto, on 2012-June-25, 21:11, said:

Playing a system with some flexibility aka hand-waviness encourages development of judgement.

Interesting. An expert friend of mine told me some years ago that he prefers SA to 2/1 for precisely this reason.