Edi Ersalesi Birsan is a game designer and an independent business owner in the Maritime Container Inspection industry, and one of the best-known American players of the game Diplomacy.[1] 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.[2]
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, first non-Russian to win the Russian 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.
In the 1969-1970 Worked on the magazine Strategy and Tactics (Associate and then Managing Editor), part of the design team of Poultron Press with James Dunnigan participating in the design of their 1969-70 games : Normandy, Deployment, Flying Fortress, Italy and others. He was one of several designers of the Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game . During the '90s he took ownership of Legends (PBM) during which time Legends won the best Play By Mail Game Manufacturers Association award.