Non-square boards TWIXT PP

4 replies. Last post: 2005-08-27

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Non-square boards
  • Tasmanian Devil at 2005-08-20

    If the swap rule were to be replaced by the rule that the first player gets shorter sides (and thus greater distance between the two), what should the difference in side length be to make the game as even as possible? I don't have any reason to believe that many players would like this change, so it's just a hypothetical question.

    I am aware that this would not work in Hex, because the second player has a simple winning strategy already when the difference is 1.

  • David J Bush ★ at 2005-08-27

    The only real way to answer this question is to play lots of games on boards of varying sizes. My guess for the standard 24x24 board is that 1 row is not enough, 2 is unclear, and 3 looks like it would be too much. But there is little motivation to play lots of games this way, since the pie rule results in as fair a game as you can get for any square board.

  • Tasmanian Devil at 2005-08-27

    Ok, thanks.

  • Alan Hensel at 2005-08-27

    Here's another way of thinking about it. If you think of the typical opening move in the c3-f3 range as a way of effectively shortening the board for races to that corner, then shortening the whole board by 1 or 2 rows seems about right.

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