New Game: Polyomino

Enjoy: Polyomino

Rules: "After two passes game is finished. Player with most squares won game."

Is that two CONSECUTIVE passes? Or is it as written, after two passes.

@Ed: Blokus rules have "The game ends when no one can place a piece." Since the two games seem related, I'd guess two consecutive passes was meant.

It makes more sense, too.

I think so too, but that might be premature thinking on my part, since I've never played Blokus or Polyomino yet.

Looks like a stripped-down version of Blokus Duo.

Wait, the Penta version of Polyomino is actually the same game as Blokus Duo.

Thanks Richard!

What version will the championship be using?

In championship will be Penta variant.

Ed, about the two consecutive passes, is there ever zugzwang in polyomino? If so, there might be a case where passing when you could make a move is optimal, if it puts your opponent in zugzwang.

You'd have to be already in the lead, since if your opponent passes rather than make a zugzwang move, the game is over. And any move you could make would presumably reduce that lead more than passing would, so in a sense you'd already have to be in zugzwang yourself.

thanks for this new game

Wow great, I am always surprised when we get a new game. Where can I find the rules though?

As usual, in the game rules page? ^^
http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/games/gamedetail.jsp?gtid=polyomino&page=rules

Thnikkaman, the usual path to rules is

1. Click on Tournaments in the Main Menu on the left.
   
2. Click on the name of the game in the left column of the table shown on that page.
   
3. Clock on Rules near the top of the page for the game.

I've played Blokus twice - lost both times from my friend - gonna practice here and next time i'll play him.... gna, gna...

This looks like fun :) a interesting addition to the site.

When is the first championship set to start?

Very nice game, thanks a lot for the addition :-)

Yes thank you Richard!

The diagram is a little confusing. The rules imply that when the number of blue tiles on the board is equal to the number of orange tiles, it will be blue's move. There are five tiles of each color placed, in the diagram. But the highlighted cells on the board indicate possible legal moves for orange, not blue.

Also, if one move equalization is not enough to balance the game because +every initial move by blue is a winning move and should be swapped+, then two move equalization would not constitute an improvement, since if any initial blue move wins, then it still wins against any response by orange. On the other hand, if there are initial blue moves which lose, and some which win, then one could argue that one move equalization would provide sufficient balance to the game. In the final case, if every initial blue move loses, then two move equalization does make sense. Is there consensus that without some sort of opening protocol such as this, the initial blank board is mutual zugzwang?

" The rules imply that when the number of blue tiles on the board is equal to the number of orange tiles, it will be blue’s move. "
How is that true? There are tiles of different size...

And I'm pretty sure not every initial move should be swapped.
Making orange use the 1 square tile, while placing for blue a big tile, is obviously better for blue, so there is no reason to swap.
In the opposite situation, swapping is obviously correct.

Sorry about the first part of my last message, I misunderstood, thinking you were talking about score, not the number of tiles.

As far as the starting moves are concerned, I think the idea is also that since you can only play next to another tile, the starting board needs to have one tile for each player placed.

Tellmarch you seem to be the one doing best at this game. Have you played it a lot of the board?

No... I played a few 4 players Blokus games 6 or 7 years ago, that's all :-)
I was mostly lucky in my first games here I think :-)

in all my games 2 blocks are allready placed
can only resign or pass

is this an error?

because in other games between 2 players
the grid is complete empty

@Tellmarch I can confirm that. You were lucky to play several games against me, the worst Polyomino player on site. :-)

Groenveld - you need to click on the squares on the board you want your shape to occupy. I've got a few games started and it is working, for me at least.

martyn Hamer :it worked for 1 of the 5

please help me??

It's difficult without being able to see your screen, but to play (for example) a 3 sized piece, you need to click on 3 squares and then submit your move. The squares available on the board should be shaded.

One of the squares must be diagonally adjacent to your single square (or another piece later in the game), but not directly adjacent.

square become white,
and this is a list of my games

2
#1531546 2013-04-13 Rex Moore info 1500 ut.polyomino.718.1.3 penta 0
#1531555 2013-04-13 minilord info 1500 ut.polyomino.718.1.3 penta 0
#1531556 2013-04-13 BigChicken info 1499 ut.polyomino.718.1.3 penta 0
#1531559 2013-04-13 Ragnar Wikman info 1484 ut.polyomino.718.1.3 penta 0
#1531539 2013-04-13 Chaosu info 1517 ut.polyomino.718.1.3 penta 2
#1531538 2013-04-13 Chaosu info 1517 ut.polyomino.718.1.3 penta 1

I can see the games where the board is empty, I don't know what is happening here as this hasn't happened in any of my games. The other games look okay, as far as I can tell you just need to either place your piece or swap (if going second).

Is anyone else struggling with this?

without placing in all games there is a cross, which
i haven't placed

The rules seems to say that the first player has to place 2 pieces, one of each colour. So your opponent must have placed the cross, and presumably you now have the option of either playing a move or swapping.

I didn't realise this myself, I seem to have played a single piece by accident in one of my games.

that looked strange that in every game, all my opponents have placed a cross
and the movenumber is 0 ??

i found my error ,you don´t slep the squares to form
the polomyno, but just click the squares...

colors a now changed so that it is easier to see which piece is the last placed one.

I see from games 1531712 and 1529701 that if both players occupy the same number of cells, the tie is not broken by awarding a win to the player who places his or her size=1 piece later.

Should it be? I think the better rules would be no points and simply first player unable to play loses :)

@ChristianK I was about to say that Thnikkaman also prefers a no-points variant until I noticed that you are Thnikkaman :)