[fraac]

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Sorry, can't help myself...if I was a 'theorist in the field' of zoology, I wouldn't necessarily know anything about trees. Now, if I were a botanist...

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My ex-girlfriend, a theorist in the field of zoology, is fond of the fact that balsa is a hardwood and talks of it often. Also, apparently, whelks have the largest penis-to-body ratio of any animal. Point is, when you can see the other guy knows what he's talking about, as jeff does, then mere pedantry loses arguments.

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Yeah, that's fine...if you want to ignore the body of the argument and focus on what was more or less a joke, ok. But that wasn't the point at all. I could care less about hardwood versus softwood...I probably shouldn't have even said that, because (I know that was being a bit nittish) people would latch onto that rather than the actual argument...oh well, I was just trying to bring a slight amount of humor

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The 'body' of your argument is that you like terms to be used precisely and to not shift in meaning (as all good language does) when no one here was confused anyway. You are arguing to an empty room. Jeff's point that the amount of information in chess increases with ability, and thus the best strategy not only changes but relies on a completely different underlying theory, has interesting implications. If you can find the link to curtains' turn in The Well, he hints at exploitative chess strategies being a new avenue for him. And he's a pro. So, it's interesting. No one was talking about whether poker is a game of skill, but if you must be precise then I suggest that exploitation takes more 'skill' than does the application of a theoretically 'optimal' strategy, and poker is more skillful than high-level chess. Which is, like your argument, pointless semantic marshland.