The problem is now computer software like Stockwell exists that can tell you in real time what the ‘correct’ move is, kids have learned a sort of mechanical version of the game with no creativity or flair. The meta has just become always straddle, and progress southwards on odd traversals. If you watch random Crescent games streaming on Twitch you’ll wind up watching two anime avatars circling round Kensington until one of them’s able to take swabbage and expand the domain. So dull.
I thought you couldn't take swabbage on the Circle and District lines, so that excludes South Kensington and Kensington High Street. Kensington Olympia is on the Overground, which is out of bounds, and is only accessible on the District line on the weekends and SOME public holidays.
So if you're seeing people on Twitch taking swabbage on Kensington Olympia in tournament play (and we know tournaments are on Saturdays only) then you know they're deepfakes.
See, this here is the -real- problem: prescriptivist tendencies in those players of a certain age who insist that, say, the Coltonshire Maneuver’s success must be determined by the application of what is rightfully analogous to the reading of chicken entrails. Read the room! The shift is towards rightbottom. LET IT SHIFT. You can always deploy cannons at High Barnet to prevent map-bleed.
Map-bleed has only become worse since Devon Etiquette became fashionable, and so now we all end up racing towards Monument to prevent swabbage, reverse swabbage and District Line Flush. It's ruined the game at the higher level IMO.
I think if as a playing community we took inspiration from the Wessex Variant, accepted the Waterloo & City amendment therein, and perhaps - and I know this is brave - moved with the times and allowed Overground at Peak, we could stop this nonsense.
The social media influencers will never allow it though. They've built their moat.. smh
