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On conventional wisdoms

Posted By: Jake Jacobs
Date: Tuesday, 21 October 2014, at 2:26 a.m.

In Response To: On conventional wisdoms (gudgen)

Despite the outcry below, this is a distillation of conventional wisdom circa 1980. And I submit that at the time it had much to recommend it. In the pre-bot era there were limits to how much one might improve, and cube handling was generally much worse than checker play, even among top players. In money play there were quite a few famously hopeless experts. Some steamed, and some froze, but anyone with reasonably good checker play but sound cubes could destroy them. Among non-experts the cube was simply mysterious. Money play was considered more important then, and even today I think you'll find the ones who know how to use the cube outscoring some of their technical betters. And back in the day, folks had no clue how to use the cube in matches.

This post may generate some responses from people who played years ago ready to toot their own horn, and claim they had peered deep under the skin of the cube and knew things that wouldn't be discovered for years. But I remember a World Cup in 1996 where a group of famous experts who I won't shame by naming did not know the takepoint for 10-away, 2-away. Out of a dozen only me, EKW, and X knew it; the rest were miles off. They actually might have done better in 1980 by knowing even less.

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