May 23, 2007

Sagme's Diaries

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

May 17, 2007

1222 UNRESTRICTED 6-MOKU

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.





The next talk showed some boards and regional designs of an old race(?) game called Liubo from China (the rules, seemingly, are lost).