Edi Birsan

Edi Ersalesi Birsan is a game designer and one of the best-known American players of the game Diplomacy. He was born in Brooklyn in 1949 but since 1981 has resided in the San Francisco Bay Area where he is married and has two children.

Birsan has been playing Diplomacy since 1965 at age 16 and has won many tournaments. He was the first non-South African to win the South African tournament, first non-Canadian to Win the Canadian Championship and first Non-European to win the European Championship. He ran the postal zine Arena from 1970 to 1973. He was a founder of several Diplomacy hobby organizations and consultant to Avalon Hill on the rewrite of the rules of the game in 1999. He is best known for inventing the Lepanto and Sealion openings.

He was one of several designers of the Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game and subsequently designed the game Scandal .

Bibliography

• The Jutland Gambit
• The Koniggratz Freakout
• The Lepanto Opening
• The Sealion Opening
• Ceasar Opening
• Western Walls -Stalemate Lines
• Austrian-Italian-Russian Alliance opening
• Triple Alliance brief summaries
• Playing Italy Part 1
• Playing Italy part 2
• Rebuttal to the Illyria Opening
• Escalation Variant-When you do not have 7 to play Diplomacy
• The Odd Theory
• Interview Review in Diplomacy World