World
Game
Of
Sprouts
Association

WGOSA Inactivity

This site has been inactive for almost three months, due to my inability to keep up with current sprouts theory and probably due to other factors also. Certainly the "cutting edge" has shifted to the GLOP site and to the sprouts-theory Google group and possibly other locations that I am unaware of. I am wondering too if there might be a growing malaise due to the quick evolution of super strong computer programs or perhaps to a related suspicion that sprouts might be solvable after all. I know when I first got enthusiastic about sprouts a big inspiration was the apparent disparity between received wisdom and what was actually easily manageable by virtue of simple applications of the survivor notion. Sprouts seemed infinitely complex but with ready avenues by which humans could dominate the most powerful computers.

Shortly after the culmination of a spectacular club championship, I broached the idea in emails that it would be a wonderful development if the publish-on-demand technology could be leveraged to begin an actual sprouts literature - sprouts books. My best hope is that our various writers have cloistered themselves to do precisely that. I love books, and I can just imagine those sprouts books beginning to line discriminating bookshelves worldwide.

I have spent a good bit of time wistfully imagining real life, in-the-flesh sprouts clubs. I wonder if that will ever be possible? Think how lucky chess players are! Just about anywhere, an advertisement for a new club will bring out some players. There are chess players everywhere, and thus are possible chess organizations with the economic clout ultimately to sustain a true elite, chess professionals comparable in accomplishment to the highest caliber artists and intellectuals in any other field. How to get there from here? Well, it's probably not going to happen, but surely we can make small improvements and continue building on what has been done so far.

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