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Sissa. Variant on 9 by 9 board with Sissa's. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Mon, Apr 14, 2008 11:38 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
'9x9 Blockbusters'. Who know what it is? Put a 'CV' (chess variate) on 9x9, and most of the time it turns out very good or excellent. The only other category that holds for seems to be  handful of particular human inventors -- to be named later. Who characteristically has  > 10 CVs and > 50% Excellent? Only  few, and we shall go out on our proverbial limb as usual, find them, and name them. Part of the reason for 9x9-types' inherent excellence has to be that Shogi amalgums -- chiefly standard Shogi -- on 9x9 are so poorly conceived. Certainly representing excellent culturally, Shogi nevertheless has been found mostly bad for play to most clubbers, worse than also-slow-paced Shatranj. Casual players in the western world find Shogi pieces, moreover, arbitrary and drops distracting. (At least Shatranj had coherence for its time.) Anyway, here is another fine, because original, '9x9', Sissa, recreating as it does ten years ago multi-path Sissa, after Coherent months earlier, and explaining it well enough in this article.  The era was short-lived, 1995 - 2003 (when Ralph Betza left) that gave CVs  spontaneneous inventiveness, with none of today's ego-driven ''new'' (and not so new (and not new at all)) combinations of elements and, worse, rating of others' CVs not very analytically, instead even with self-described vengeance aforethought. In other words, the modern ethos within CVPage includes that if someone criticizes one's CV, it is taken personally and  calls for ''balancing the equation'' by rating the evaluaters' CVs or articles low, regardless of actual merit. Most of newer prolificists adhere to their such principle of ''vengeance rating.'' What a downturn from days of Ralph Betza's mixture of dry wit and informed judgment.