2007 English DBA Open: Entry Forms Now Available

But instead of the boring set piece stuff that has been played for decades, why can't competitions set tasks that judge players by the skill they display in various situations? Do they lack the imagination for that?

On one occasion, some years ago, we had some games based on that principle. In one Napoleonic game the commanders had to extract armies from a difficult situation. One of the players with a Russian army did so well, and impressed everyone with the skill he displayed, that I went off downstairs and purchased a set of flags suitable for his army and we spontaneously presented 'the colours' to him amids the acclaim of all present.

Now THAT was displaying Generalship and really did deserve an award.

Another task was to fight a delaying action while various other imaginary things could occur. (His side was supposedly avoiding the main body being outflanked) The attacking player showed total incompetence in the face of another guy who used his skill and inflicted such serious casualties that he not only won the delaying battle section, but won the game as the attacker was forced to retreat.

Another player had to 'pin' a larger enemy army in place while other things happened, which would doom the larger one if it failed. (It was theoretically being cut off from behind) The player in that instance pulled off a brilliant pinning action, that was impressive and skillful. The player trying to avoid the 'pin' could only escape by routing….which was hardly the intent of it all.

That is not to say that some people did not make a mess of some tasks and do well at others, but by the end of the series of things they had to perform, there were few doubts about which players were the best generals.

In all the series of battle problems, the players used the terrain. Either very well…or very badly.