Dmitri,

About my mentioning lunar eclipses,

Gary said:
'Draws should not occur. Yes they would be quite rare in Poof Pente, but the fact that they WOULD be rare is a good reason to not have them at all.'

I wanted to show how that was an example of Gary making very illogical statements. Claiming that we should do away with something (in this case draws in poof-pente) simply because the occur infrequently, just doesn't make sense.

The context of that was in reply to Walter. I was explaining why I didn't want to engage Gary in a debate. One of my reasons is because Gary makes a lot of illogical statements. I sited that as an example. Once again, here is what he said:
"...the fact that they WOULD be rare is a good reason to not have them at all."

Eliminating something just because it is rare is a dumb idea. To illustrate that point, I selected another example of something that is rare (lunar eclipses) and indicated that, according to Gary's logic, we should rid ourselves of them. Obviously, ridding ourselves of lunar eclipses is a ridiculous idea. But it demonstrates just how illogical Gary's statements often are.

Thad

Thad, you ahve GOT to be joking. You said :

"I wanted to show how that was an example of Gary making very illogical statements. Claiming that we should do away with something (in this case draws in poof-pente) simply because the occur infrequently, just doesn't make sense.

The context of that was in reply to Walter. I was explaining why I didn't want to engage Gary in a debate. One of my reasons is because Gary makes a lot of illogical statements. I sited that as an example. Once again, here is what he said:
"...the fact that they WOULD be rare is a good reason to not have them at all."

Eliminating something just because it is rare is a dumb idea. To illustrate that point, I selected another example of something that is rare (lunar eclipses) and indicated that, according to Gary's logic, we should rid ourselves of them. Obviously, ridding ourselves of lunar eclipses is a ridiculous idea. But it demonstrates just how illogical Gary's statements often are.
"

This is hilarious. YOUR statements are beyond illogical, there are no words do define the illogicalness of your statements (see, I just had to invent a word already!).

Gary was saying that since draws are infrequent IN POOF PENTE and easily avoidable, they should be eliminated altogether.

What does this have to do with Lunar eclipses? If you have taken a logic class you would know the fallacy of weak analogy. Pente and eclipses have NOTIHNG to do with one another!

What applies to a PENTE game need not apply to a stament about ECLIPSES!

by your logic, any eclipse that is captured 5 times would lose. But, that statement does nto make sense either, because PENTE HAS NOTIHNG TO DO WITH ECLIPSES!

Dmitri,

In response to your post beginning "Thad, you ahve GOT to be joking. ":

I think you're still missing my point. Walter asked why I chose not to debate Gary and I gave him several reasons. One of the reasons is because Gary uses illogical statements like saying that draws should be removed BECAUSE they're rare. That statement is illogical. Now perhaps a different analogy would have been better, but the eclipse thing was what I thought of at the time. Maybe I should have said something like, having three queens of one color in chess rarely occurs so we should get rid of that. Or since gammons and backgammons in the game backgammon are rare, we should get rid of them too.

Do you see what I mean? The fact that these things are rare is no reason to remove them from their respective games. What Gary said contradicts that. What Gary said is illogical.

Now, If you'd like, I could give you (and Walter) more examples of illogical things Gary has said, but the best examples occurred during the move restriction discussion and I REALLY don't want to open that up again.

I hope I have made myself clear and that we can put this particular issue to rest. If not, I will concede the point and only list the other reasons as to why I chose not to debate Gary.

Thad

Thad, I am NOT missing your point. I think much of what you have said is illogical, some of it ridiculously so.

I'll take another look and reread what Gary wrote because I think you are committing the straw man fallacy (I love all this talk about fallacies, fallacies are fun!).

Of course, the straw man fallacy is when a person distorts the other person's argument, thus creating a "straw man" or "dummy argument," then thoroughly defeats the dummy argument and acts as if the original argument has been defeated.

Thad, I had to GO WAY back to find this:

Here is what Gary said that you are taking issue with:

Gary said

"Draws should not occur. Yes they would be quite rare in Poof Pente, but the fact that they WOULD be rare is a good reason to not have them at all."

You are not reading the entire quote there - he prefaced it by saying "DRAWS SHOULD NOT OCCUR."

His point was not that draws should be eliminated BECAUSE they are rare, BUT that draws should not occur, PERIOD, and since they are already rare, they can be gotten rid of WITHOUT having a great impact on the game. Now, maybe you will reply that I am putting words in his mouth - but that is not so, because IN THE VERY SAME POST of his from which you are taking his statement out of context, he CLOSED HIS POST BY SAYING:

"So if a draw can be easily eliminated without affecting the inherent rules of the game, then I think that it should be done."

And there you have it. You distorted his arugment by taking a single sentence out of context, then you defeated the distorted argument (actually, you didn't, because your analogy to lunar eclipses was terribly weak).

So you committed a fallacy and then while in the process of carrying out your fallacious reasoning you committed another fallacy.

I would say it is you who is lacking the logic here.