I took some time off from LOA (due to the large number of cheaters). Since Jamaica apologized for his cheating and dropped out of competition, I decided to join again. Now I see that the championship is black hole? Is this the first time the championship is black hole? I don't know if I should be glad or sad. I guess glad because it can limit the cheaters, I guess sad because I have zero experience in this variation. What do you think?

This is the first time the championship is blackhole, this was discussed in the blackhole thread before Jamaica retired. I advocated both black hole championship as well as regular LOA but with a preference to blackhole because of jamaica type behaviour.

No-one has that much experience with black hole, the skillset is similar to regular LOA, although there are differences!

Oh I missed the registration for the championship!

If I knew it was black-hole this would have been more motivation to register.

The main difference I see from limited experience I have, is that trapping only one or even two pawns from the rest of your opponent's formation may not be enough if they manage to escape and dive into the black-hole in the end game, so material advantage is not so important as the main use is that…

The other big difference is the size, altering the way to block, to go to center and the fact that many more pawns will be stacked, mainly on diagonals.

I think it is a better game than standard LOA (despite the small artificial added peculiarity of black-hole), more deep and that may show more strategy than tactics.

Ok, I see the discussion on black hole in the championship, and I note Richard M. made at least one post indicating that he was considering such a change. I think it would be a good idea to mention on the tournament page that the championship is “black hole” and it would also be a good idea to adjust the rules page.

I was at first surprised that I was in the top division, as I had been knocked out of the first division the last time I played in a LOA championship (I skipped 13 and 14). But this makes since because the Jamaica cheater had several identities in the top division and he withdrew all of them, therefore there was room in the top for others to move up. I was also surprised to see Carroll was not there!

It will also be interesting to see how Diamante does with this variation. In the normal variation, he started with mixed results against average players, but his learning curve was steep as he apparently had some sort of epiphany about the game.

Should be fun!

Well, Diamante must have been shell shocked to discover the championship is black hole. He is resigning all of his games on the first move to protect his (ahem) hard earned rating.

After checking the new rules I like the to play a variation this time - some interesting games running… If someone really passsed just for keep his rating score, that's a pretty poor choice :-( Rating is just a number, playing is fun! Let's hope there was another reason for it.

I'm a little late here, but this sounds promising…I just signed up for championship #17. I'm a little rusty, though, not having played at all since #12 (I quit after being disgusted with all the cheaters). Looking forward to it, whenever it starts…