Boxing Advice!

[Richard Pask]

Inspired by the popular checker-playing advice I have been reading on the Internet, I present for your delectation some boxing advice:

1) In general, you should avoid being hit by your opponent;
2) If they do hit you, make sure you hit back harder;
3) In the event of being knocked down, always get up before the referee's count reaches 10;
4) If, upon entering the final round, you have not yet knocked out your opponent, ensure you do so promptly. This will avoid a contentious points decision which might go against you.

Good luck!

[George Hay]

Or as Mike Tyson would say “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

--George Hay

[chipschap]

I have to chime in as Richard and I have corresponded about this.

We really ought to collect some "advice" gems in this thread.

Here are a few.

1. Always try to capture more of your opponent's checkers than he captures of yours.

2. Keep your king row intact until you run short of checkers. This is my absolute favorite. What a terrible thing, to run short of checkers.

3. Try to get a king while preventing your opponent from getting a king.

4. Always make good moves.

[Richard Pask]

Bob,

I like the elegantly expressed alternative to #1:

'If you are going to lose a piece, ensure you extract a greater toll from your opponent.'

[liam stephens]

Editor Hugh Egan in the Melbourne Weekly Times wrote a salutary warning for the pyramid builders, in his article Advice for Beginners, as recorded on page 94 of Boland’s Famous Positions:
“At the beginning of a game, it is better to play your pieces towards the centre of the board in the form of a pyramid, than to play into the side square, because a piece at the side can move only in one direction, and consequently loses half its power.”
This seems logical no doubt, and the “pyramid idea” is regarded as gospel by the compilers of some handbooks on indoor games in which draughts receives somewhat indifferent – in fact, harmful -treatment.
Architecture in draughts, however, fails to stimulate the practical player’s imagination. Certainly he finds some strength and beauty in exposed rows, and more particularly in diagonal lines; but he has no taste for “pyramid building”.
When confronted with play of this kind, he at once sets to work to lay his hidden “mine” in an effort to shatter the structure to his own advantage. It is with the “pyramid builder” that the expert player has vast opportunities for those “pyrotechnical displays,” those shots and strokes, which so astonish the newcomer. "
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However, for anyone fond of pyramids see Ciurlionis’ Sonata of the Pyramids (which can be viewed on Google).