Trabsact Sagme Diaries: May 2007

May 23, 2007

Sagme's Diaries

With falling stones
many battles rage, but
the game is one.
[From Sagme's Haiku]

May 17, 2007

Sample Game:
XXXX OOOO 00. --- o25 n24 n26 01. p24 p25 p26 o23 02. m25 n25 q25 l11 03. o26 o27 q24 p27 04. o28 q26 n23 o29 05. l23 m24 k22 p23 06. q23 r22 s21 o22 07. m22 m23 m20 m26 08. n21 o20 p19 k24 09. j23 k23 i23 n19 10. l21 j24 o19 q19 11. m19 r19 p18 r20 12. o17 t22 q17 n20 13. r16 j22? p16 p17 14. resign Final Position: g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . . O . x . . . 16 . . . . . . . . x O o . . . . 17 . . . . . . . . . o . . . . . 18 . . . . . . x o o o o x . . . 19 . . . . . . o o x . . o . . . 20 . . . . . x . x . . . . o . . 21 . . . x o . x . o . . x . x . 22 . . o x x x x o o o x . . . . 23 . . . x o . x o . x o . . . . 24 . . . . . o x x x x o . . . . 25 . . . . . . o o x o x . . . . 26 . . . . . . . . x o . . . . . 27 . . . . . . . . x . . . . . . 28 . . . . . . . . o . . . . . . 29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

HIXT

Rules:
* On his turn a player drop a friendly stones in an empty cell, and
connects it, via a bridge, with any friendly stone (at diamond's distance)
* Stones connect via adjacency or using a bridge
* PIE rule for the second player's first move
* The player connecting two opposite edges or making a Y connecting
three non-adjacent edges, wins the game

Sample Game:

XXX === OOO j13 o8 h7 i10 l9 o10 l11 l7 k8 o12 j5 i6 g6 f7 d7 l5 m4 s4 q4 p3 p5 s6 p15 o14 m14 r15 c10 i12 g12 b9 c8 f9 d11 m2 g2 i4 j3 j1 h1 1-0 Final position: |a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C | x o__ . . . . . . 1 | \__ | x__ . . o__ . . . . . 2 | \__ \__ | . . x__ . . o__ . . . . 3 | \__ \__ | . . o . __x__ . x o . . . 4 | __/ \__ | | . . . __x __o . x . | . . . . 5 | __/ __/ | | . . __x __o__ . . . . o . . . . 6 | __/ __/ \__ | . x o x__ . o__ . . . . . . . . 7 | | \__ \__ |. x . | . . x . o . . . . . . . 8 | | | | | o | . o__ . . x . | . . . . . . . 9 | | \__ | | | x . . o . | . o . . . . . . 10 | | | | | x__ . . | . x . | . . . . . . 11 | \__ | | | . x__ o . . o . . . . . 12 | \__ | | . . x__ . . | . . . . . 13 | \__ | | . . . x__ o__ . . . . 14 | \__ \__ | . . . . x o . . 15 |a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C

Hixt is a hex variant of Twixt with some different connenction criteria. The board should be large enough so that the drama of a single bad move could not determine the match outcome. Probably, a hex board with edges of size 10 should already provide a nice battle.

May 2, 2007

A multiplication game

This game is focused for young people when learning multiplication.
Let's consider multiplications x*y with values ranging from 1 to 9.

First, one player picks one pair, say x1*y1. The second player chooses another pair x2*y2. Then the second player takes the modulus of the difference , i.e., |x1*y1 - x2*y2| and takes that difference as his points. Then, the second player must choose a pair x2*y3 or x3*y2 (i.e., he must keep one of the numbers from his last picked pair). This is the first turn. Then this is repeated (now the first player starts choosing a pair, makes the difference and choose a related pair, and so on...). Pairs can never be choosed twice.

The game ends when one player cannot continue (there are no similar pairs to choose since all were selected already). The player with less points wins the game.

It's possible to speed things up but restricting to pairs x*y where x<y.

An initial example:
____ Player1 ____________ Player2 ____ --- (--------) 3x5 | 4x4 (1 points) 4x9 --> |3x5-4x4|=1 6x6 (0 points) 6x9 | 7x8 (2 points) 7x9 8x8 (1 points) 8x9 | 9x9 (9 points) 5x9 6x7 (3 points) 6x8 | 7x7 (1 points) 5x7 4x8 (3 points) 5x8 (and so on...)

May 1, 2007

Board Games Studies 2007 (part 3: The Spielmuseum)

The game museum, near Vienna, is a project from Dagmar de Cassan and her husband. Nowadays, it consists of thousands of games that are being archived and cataloged in a digital database. Let's hope they can solve the space problem so that people can consult and play many of these board games.

Board Games Studies 2007 (part 2: The Talks)

There were several talks at the Colloquium ranging from psychology, history (we heard, for instance, about the history of Draughts, Go and Liubo), regional games (some films in India and Zanzibar where game masters play Bao) and math (the connections between math theories and chess).

Here are some pictures of one talk that defends that the Ashtapada board was not used to play any specific race game and how the round board found in the Kurna temple does not represent any game:

Another talk presented a study from Alex de Voogt about the tactical similarities and differences between beginners and masters in the complex mancala game of Bao.