I hate having things unanswered, leaving things incomplete, especially in the lab and ofcourse in retrosynthetic analysis. Today I dissected a mechanism for annulation of a dicyanide penta ring, in the presence of a tertiary butoxide preceeding the addition of phosphoric acid. But there are still questions in my mind. I wonder why the reaction as deslongchamps points out, goes via an enamino-nitrile intermediate. Ofcourse I have managed to convince myself of the possibility of this happening. But I wonder if this happens every time, or just this once due to the presence of the tertiary butoxide....