Ha -- brilliant example of evergreen stuff on SN. Thanks for the link.
I'm curious how you indexed this in your mind. Like, what was the process by which the current discussion reminded you of the older SN one? It seems like a rich interlinkage.
Forced to guess, I'd say I found it via some kind of composite index where the column order is (player names, game shape). Whatever index I have where game shape is first indexed is probably more sparse than I'd like.

On the topic of brain indices ... The other day when I was trying to recall Drew Barrymore's name, I first audibly called her Hallie Barry then Happy Gilmore before arriving at Drew Barrymore. Brains must have some kind of soundex system.
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Similar systems were used (and perhaps still are, though the field's momentum is elsewhere) to map out the brain's semantic structures back in the day. It works both semantically and phonologically, and presumably via other associational mechanisms as well.
I'd never heard of soundex, I'm totally stealing that.
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