Twixt in NY City on July 15?

OK folks. July 15 is approaching. I have done a little research on places in NY City. Unfortunately, the first two that I looked at had round tables - not good for game playing.

Then I remembered The Yaffa Cafe.

http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/yaffa-cafe/

I recalled sitting there for hours one night with an ex-gf playing Scrabble. She beat me. But they have rectangular tables.

I just phoned them. They have people who play games there (assuming you buy some stuff). They ALSO have an outdoor area - never saw that - might be nice, depending on the weather.

It's now, a tad late for notice, alas. Perhaps some folks can't make plans in one week.

But this was Upendra's original idea; hopefully you are around.

Dvd Avins is a fellow NJ person and Twixt player, who has expressed interest.

jds chimed in on the prior thread.

David Bush showed some interest, but a commute from Virginia to The Big Apple for a few hours of Twixt may just not be cost justified. Also, he'd be mopping the floor with everyone, but maybe we could learn something. There's always row handicapping.

Aganju said he'd be in NYC that day, and could spare a few hours in the afternoon.

And maybe there's a few players around the NYC area whom we haven't heard from. This a a chance, folks - so shall we make this happen?

Note that Friday is my day off - and I'm willing to show up at the place at 3PM, and stay there until 8PM - so there will be some flexibility as to when people come. But hopefully there will be more than just ME - especially the way I play these days. I won't be all that tough to beat.

What I envision, besides games, is maybe some useful discussion on playing ideas and strategy - perhaps we can all learn something. We can also discuss goings-on at LG.

Oh - and the place has pretty good food, best as I remember.

(meow)

I can probably make it.

I will be there! maybe some minutes after 3.

Hi everyone - sorry to be late to this party, I didn't realize the original thread kept going!

Need to shuffle some things to make it, will find out ASAP. Should be fun!

Do we have enough boards?

(@mistercat - thanks for doing the research on places; next time I'll help as well, I know of a couple other options).

I can bring my one Twixt set. I can also bring chess equip - set; clocks; Othello. I can also make copies of a pp Twixt board and bring colored pencils!

Note; possible change of venue being investigated; KEEP WATCHING THIS THREAD!

(meow)

Just tell me before I'm there.

Have fun, guys. I can't make it this time but I think NYC twixt is a great idea and hope to make it some time in future if you do it again. Friday afternoon I'll be stuck at work a world away in Bridgewater, NJ. :-(

OK, Aganju and Dvd:

upendra has looked at two places, Yaffa and The West 3rd Street Common. Note his comments, quoted and excerpted below:

\* \* \* * *

another option is West 3rd Common, which I just stumbled upon and am at right now.

http://west3rdcommon.com/gallery.html

Perfect set up for gaming (both couches and sit down tables), really empty (it's 6pm right now and plenty of space to spread out in, very loungy, no "assigned tables"), happy hour starts at 4pm, free wifi - and most importantly - game friendly! They have a stack of board games behind the bar, and the folks next to me are playing Othello. I don't think they'll care too much if people are or are not continually ordering bar food or drinks.

\* \* \* * *

OK then, I'm sold. I've never been there, but let's check out this West 3rd Common (see the website - it's right near NYU - kind of a block below the old Bottom Line, for those who remember.

I'll be there by 3PM at the latest (it's my day off, remember?).

Aganju - I'll assume you'll break away from your party and work your way down around that time. Probably the #6 train is your best bet.

upendra has pledged to arrive soon after 3 and stay for an hour or two.

Dvd - you didn't specify if you can make that afternoon time. If are coming from a traditional day job, this could be a problem. Hope you can make this - as I said, I'll play into the early evening (if need be), but maybe this whole show can be over by 6PM.

Free wi-fi. Does anybody have a laptop (net pad, blackberry, etc.) they can bring? If so, we can give a report on the event and post here at LG!

Perhaps we can record a game or two and post the moves, kind of as a record.

I mentioned the other games, since we all play them. Personally, I'm hoping for this meeting to concentrate on Twixt - such a rare event - but if folks want to branch out a bit, I'm for it.

I hope somebody has a 2nd Twixt set. Otherwise, we use mine and I'll bring paper boards. We can go back and forth.

jds - glad you saw this; I picked this particular date to accommodate Aganju's trip to NYC. Let's see how it works out; perhaps you'll take the reins and arrange something else later in the summer, and more (and different) people will attend. I taught in Bridgwater once; summer school program. Nice area - good shopping mall - and you have a great Wegman's down on 206! It's not really THAT far away, but I certainly understand the difficulties involved with making plans - especially on short notice.

ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE WANT TO MAKE THIS? Here's your thread - post away!

(roar)

I'm free because I'm a teacher who's not teaching summer school. I should be there at 3:00 or shortly thereafter.

I have an old set that's not in great shape.

got it.

I'll be there, and I'll bring my iPad anyway (it will tell me how to get there) and we can use it to post to LG.

I like Twixt but I would also like to play other games. Go, Backgammon, whatever.

And I look forward to meet some people in person, and put faces to the handles! (even though they will be gone immediately, as I have prosopognosia)

Looking forward to meeting anyone. Sadly I wont' be able to stay very long, but will be good to see folks in person.

MisterCat - actually I live in Maryland, I only work in Bridgewater. But the whole family loves NYC, so taking the train up for a long weekend and carving out some twixt time sounds like fun.

I regret I cannot attend, but maybe next year?

Thanks DB for adding your comment and support.

My feeling now, is that let's pull this off; it's only two days away. You'll hear some reactions, reports, and comments.

Hope for the best, and maybe with more advance planning and more cooperation, we'll be able to take a step up in the future.

mc

Ok, I made it into NYC, so the rest should be easy. CU all in 14 h.

West 3rd St. Common. I'll be there at 3.

(meow)

Will we have Live Feed?

That's being worked on.

I propose a 15 minute delay, so we can't have another scandal, as happened to the French Chess team. They would make moves, their manager observed the games and contacted an accomplice who was analyzing them using super software. Then the manager fed best moves to the players by using a pre-arranged code system of standing at different positions.

With the extremely high stakes at this Twixt meeting, all of the money, prizes, and international acclaim involved, the players should submit to cavity searches, and we will have armed guards preventing any player from leaving once the games have begun.

Also, the rest room will be scanned with electronics detectors to prevent another 'Toiletgate', and we have arranged for rest room attendants to be present; we got a great deal from some females who agreed to work on a 'tips only' basis. Have to cut corners where we can!

mc

Where's the webcam?

Wow, if I had known there was going to be this much intrigue, I would have taken the ride up there! I'll work on my signals for the next time.

It was fun.

Yeah, talk about intrigue - we'll finally find out if MisterCat has been cheating. I have long suspected he has mostly been lying in a sunbeam, napping, while his human made all his moves.

and a nice MEOW!! to you, too, Alan!

OK, the report. A good time was had by all. It was fabulous to be able to finally play Twixt games against good, experience players. We had some brief discussions on goings-on here at LG; nothing too earth-shattering.

There were a total of 8 games of Twixt played. Aganju had the only positive record, with a score of 3-1. Both Dvd and myself finished with scores of 2-3. Upendra had to leave early, and broke even at 1-1.

The bar had a nice environment BUT, later in the day when more people started coming, they cranked up the background music. I'd say it made it a tad harder to concentrate (but then again, the alcohol may have played a small part).

No other games were played. The time just wasn't there - the whole event only lasted 3 hours. We played - there was no serious discussion on playing strategies, styles, methods - I would have liked this, but as I said - the time just wasn't there. Thus, this was a social event, but did not have the effect of a 'workshop' - no playing improvement.

For my part, I was the player who barely spoke during the games. I guess that's me - I just try to focus on the games and take them as seriously as possible, even though nothing at all was at stake. The other guys sometimes discussed good and bad moves and possibilities WHILE they were playing their games. I have no problem with that I guess, but it's not my style. If we ever do something again and make an agreement to discuss positions and moves WHILE they are occurring, then I'd be delighted to do that - I am certain to learn something that way!

I've now posted two photos for your edification on the web. Sorry - don't have the time right now to chop down the pixels, so they'll be slow to open. But you will see all four of us - actually 3 human players, and one puppet making the moves for a cat hidden under table!

See if these links work out for you:

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u177/eyeswideshut1212/TwixtPlayers.jpg

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u177/eyeswideshut1212/TwixtGame.jpg

When Aganju chimes in, he might post the shot he grabbed using his cell phone.

Several of the players are so used to playing Twixt here at LG that they found it to be a problem to not have those handy guide lines on the board. Personally, I don't think I had any difficulty with this, but I guess it might be different if you grew up owning a Twixt set, or only just learned it on the Internet.

Will we do this again??

Well - Aganju was only up from the south for today. Who knows if he'll be around the NYC area again.

Upendra and Dvd are locals. It's not unlikely that we may meet up again - maybe not all at once - and play some more live games. It was fun (to quote Dvd).

But maybe this will inspire a few more of us to arrange live meetings to play these games. Sometimes it's nice to interact with humanity AS humanity, and not just some text and pictures on the web. (I know - to most teenagers now, 'humanity' means nothing more than the last text message received on their blackberry; I'm counting on being dead before that truly becomes the norm for human interaction.)

And as for you, Alan - well, watch out. One of these days I'm going to hop in my car, drive south, pick up Bush along the way, and visit you. I'll let Bush take care of you on one Twixt board, and I have a 'date' with your cat!

Mister Cat

(meow)

From left to right in the first picture: MisterCat; Dvd Avins; Aganju; Upendra.

Great photos! Thanks for the story. Klaus Hussmanns and I discovered the same thing at the MSO, even though we have both played lots of games on real boards, it's more difficult to read the position without guide lines. Perhaps I will make a video on how to add these lines to a set.

That looks like a nice cul de sac for playing. Was the lighting adequate? Did you attract much attention or interest in the game? Did Yoko Ono stop by and declare she would sponsor a million dollar tournament?

It looks like someone brought an Othello set.

Thanks for the picture re-post, ypercube. I wasn't sure how to do it that way.

To answer a question, ONE person stopped by to observe and seemed interested in the game. We showed him the instruction sheet; he glanced at it and walked away. I think he was hoping for some more conversation and personalized instruction, but he didn't realize that we were all quite engrossed in games at the time.

I believe that we all shared the feeling of how rare this event was, and wanted to make the most of it.

Just to be on the safe side in case more people came or there was more time, I grabbed the Othello set that you see, as well as a Chess set and clock; these were not touched.

I showed off my 'Pan - Kai' game; this was an early creation by Alex Randolf (1961); we didn't play it. If there's an Alex Randolf collector out there who'd like to buy it from me, please get in touch.

The lighting was fine; I already complained about the music. If Yoko Ono HAD stopped by, I would have been complaining about the music even more!

This venue was adequate. There might be other choices to consider for any future events. Maybe the place was a bit pricey; the wait-staff might have been a bit more attentive, in my opinion. They do not make a good iced coffee! As for the food - Dvd tried some. Ask him.

(meow)

The burger was reasonably good and, for Manhattan, no more expensive than I'd expect, perhaps even on the low side. Which is to say, on the expensive side for most other locations.

Sounds like y'all had great time. I just wish there was more twixt players on the west coast to set up an event like this.