Iago -- NEW ABSTRACT GAME variant of Othello
William Chang
I had this idea a long time ago when Othello first came into vogue --
before I even knew how Reversi had done the same a century earlier.
Well, Iago does to Othello what Othello had done to Reversi: prepopulate
a few squares. That's it. Mobility is still a key strategy but
edge-play is now accentuated and it's less of a "wait-till-the-end
all-or-nothing corner grabbing" sort of game. (This is not to sell
Othello short -- I like the game as is.)
x . . . . . . o
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . o x . . .
. . . x o . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
o . . . . . . x
Regarding the "chess is 99% tactics?" discussion in rec.games.abstract,
Is mobility "strategy" and edge-play "tactics", or vice versa?
The rule I'd use is, the better strategic player will usually
defeat the better tactician, in the long run. Position serves
mobility, and mobility serves winning combinations. In chess or
any other abstract game.
(From http://www.ex.ac.uk/~dregis/DR/Tactics/tacticq.html)
"I can see the combinations as well as Alekhine, but I cannot get
into the same positions." -- SPIELMANN
William Chang Los Gatos, California 16 April 2001
email: willia...@hotmail.com, wch...@acm.org
(C) 2001 William I. Chang
Joao Neto
William Chang <wch...@sentius.com> wrote:
> Iago does to Othello what Othello had done to Reversi: prepopulate
> a few squares.
> x . . . . . . o
> . . . . . . . .
> . . . . . . . .
> . . . o x . . .
> . . . x o . . .
> . . . . . . . .
> . . . . . . . .
> o . . . . . . x
You could, instead of the corners, prepopulate the weak
squares b2, b7, g2, g7. On that game, each player must
worry to defend their new weak stones. It's the opposite
of Iago, call it Ogai? :-)
Cheers,
Joao Neto
Torben AEgidius Mogensen
> Iago does to Othello what Othello had done to Reversi: prepopulate
> a few squares.
> x . . . . . . o
> . . . . . . . .
> . . . . . . . .
> . . . o x . . .
> . . . x o . . .
> . . . . . . . .
> . . . . . . . .
> o . . . . . . x
I once suggested a variant where you start by taking turns to place a
number of tokens on empty squares on the board (though not next to the
midlle four squares). The game is then played normally. A token blocks
the square in which it is placed, so no move on that square is
possible. A token is colourless, so it works like the edge of the
board.
This works best on a larger board, e.g. a 10x10 board.
Another variant will make complete search by computer more difficult:
Each disk has a cross marked on both sides. A disk can be oriented so
the cross is either like an 'x' or like a '+'. When placing a disk,
the same-colour disk at the other end of a line must be aligned such
that one of the arms of the cross points in the direction of the line.
Otherwise, that line isn't turned over. The new disk must also be
placed such that an arm points in the direction of the line that is
turned. Hence, a new disk turns either horisontal and vertical lines
or diagonal lines and, similarly, a disk already on the board allows
turning of lines in only four of the 8 directions. The disks that are
turned over are oriented by choice of the player who does the turning.
This changes play in several ways: The squares next to a corner are
not as dangerous, as the disks placed there may be turned to so they
don't allow the other player to us it to play in the corner. Also, a
corner that is won by a diagonal move can not be used to conquer the
edge. Additionally, the number of possible moves increase, as each
turned disk can be oriented two ways. So, if you turn 5 disks, you
have 32 possible ways of orienting them. On the other hand, there will
be fewer squares where legal moves are possible, so it is more likely
that a player passes and that the game ends before all squares are
filled.
Torben Mogensen (tor...@diku.dk)
MLHowe
Fascinating! Have you tried this? Do you have any sample games to share with
us? Also, does anyone out there think that it could be implemented with the
Zillions engine?
fizzycyst
Don Woods
> This changes play in several ways: The squares next to a corner are
> not as dangerous, as the disks placed there may be turned to so they
> don't allow the other player to us it to play in the corner.
Except, the disk next to the corner is one of the ones being turned,
so its orientation doesn't matter.
There _is_ some lessened degree of danger, but it's more subtle than
how you place the next-to-the-corner disk. When you place it, you
can see (often) how the other-color disk further down the line is
oriented. Thus, if you play B2 and flip C3 D4 (and you own E5), you
can see whether the opponent's disk at F6 is oriented dangerously.
Except, of course, that's not really the problem. First off, if it's
that sort of position, you still have to worry that the opponent will
find a move that flips back one of C3 D4 E5, and he'll orient it to
point to A1, and then he can play at A1. But more important, consider
how moves to the next-to-corner more commonly arise, especially edge
spaces like A2. If you play at A2, it usually isn't off of B2 since
nobody plays there, nor is it usually a flip along the edge of the
board. Usually A2 is played to flip in the B3 direction. But if you
do that in your variant, then the opponent merely finds a chance to
play at A3, flipping B3 back, and now A3 points through A2 to A1, and
you can't even defend by playing A4 because A2 does NOT point there!
Anyway, I agree that the variant affects the game in interesting ways,
but not necessarily all the ways you suggested.
-- Don.
William Chang
"Torben AEgidius Mogensen" <tor...@diku.dk> wrote in message
news:9bpj0d$d...@grimer.diku.dk...
> William Chang <wch...@sentius.com> wrote:
>
> > Iago does to Othello what Othello had done to Reversi: prepopulate
> > a few squares.
> Each disk has a cross marked on both sides. A disk can be oriented so
> turned over are oriented by choice of the player who does the turning.
>
It would seem at first glance, that your variant is difficult to fathom.
However, a possible strategy would be to orient discs so as to minimize
capture in the early going, in particular x for discs away from the
boundary, + for discs along the edges. If both players caught on to
such a strategy, then the game may become static -- too easy to capture
very few discs until nearing the end. Anyway, this is just a hypothesis.
. . . . . . . +
. . . . . . + +
. . . . . x x +
. . . . x x x +
. . . . x x x +
. . . . . x x +
. . . . . . + +
. . . . . . . +
A variation to your variation would force all captured discs to orient
the same way as the end discs -- like magnets lining up between poles.
This would reduce the decision-making at every turn and may make the
game more transparent.
One might miss the tactical edge-play of Othello...
-- William
William Chang
(1) Initially the four discs must be oriented +
(2) Until a player chooses to orient a flipped disc x, he cannot
make a diagonal (x) capture.
(3) As Torben pointed out, there may be fewer possible openings.
-- William
Don Woods
> Observations Re: Torben's Othello variant
> (1) Initially the four discs must be oriented +
Good point. This means that an earlier poster's suggestion won't
work, to have all flipped discs forced to be oriented to match the
two discs that caused the flipping. You'd never have any 'x' discs.
It's possible that it works to have all the flipped discs orient
the opposite way from the flippers, but I suspect it's still too
constrained.
-- Don.
William Chang
news:7wg0f0k...@ca.icynic.com...
Well, I made both (conflicting) suggestions -- albeit in different
messages. But I'm writing to say I tried your suggestion above, to
orient flipped discs opposite from the flippers, and LIKED it. One
of the two possible openings quickly gives Black a corner (Black makes
three consecutive moves forcing White to play C), but the symmetric
opening seems even without looking ahead. It may be too constrained,
but the gameplay felt right in terms of making combinations.
Aside: It is also possible to play the initial discs the Reversi way,
maybe even extended to 4x4, yielding a potentially richer opening theory
which Othello lacks.
Black orthogonal # diagonal X White orthogonal O diagonal @
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C .
. . . . . . . . . . X . . . . . . . X . . . . . . . X . . B A .
. . . O @ O . . . . . # @ O . . . . . # @ O . . . . . # @ O . .
. . . # X . . . . . . # X . . . . . . O X . . . . . . X X . . .
. . . . # . . . . . . . # . . . . . @ . # . . . . . @ # # . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . X . . . . . . . X . . @ . . . . X . . @ . .
. . . O # . . . . . . # # . . . . . . # O . . . . . . # X # . .
. . . @ X . . . . . . @ X . . . . . . @ X . . . . . . @ X . . .
. . . O # . . . . . . O # . . . . . . O # . . . . . . O # . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-- William
Torben AEgidius Mogensen
The main motivation for adding the crosses was to increase the search
space to a degree where an exhaustive search by computer would be
impractical, and hence (potentially) put the game back on human turf.
If you make the orientation determined by the move, you lose this and
may even get an even more constrained game then standard Othello.
Torben Mogensen (tor...@diku.dk)
Torben AEgidius Mogensen
>>I once suggested a variant where you start by taking turns to place a
>>number of tokens on empty squares on the board (though not next to the
>>midlle four squares). The game is then played normally. A token blocks
>>the square in which it is placed, so no move on that square is
>>possible. A token is colourless, so it works like the edge of the
>>board.
>>Another variant will make complete search by computer more difficult:
>>Each disk has a cross marked on both sides. A disk can be oriented so
>>the cross is either like an 'x' or like a '+'. When placing a disk,
>>the same-colour disk at the other end of a line must be aligned such
>>that one of the arms of the cross points in the direction of the line.
>>Otherwise, that line isn't turned over. The new disk must also be
>>placed such that an arm points in the direction of the line that is
>>turned. Hence, a new disk turns either horisontal and vertical lines
>>or diagonal lines and, similarly, a disk already on the board allows
>>turning of lines in only four of the 8 directions. The disks that are
>>turned over are oriented by choice of the player who does the turning.
>> Torben Mogensen (tor...@diku.dk)
>Fascinating! Have you tried this? Do you have any sample games to share with
>us? Also, does anyone out there think that it could be implemented with the
>Zillions engine?
I have tried a single game with the token-placement variant on a 10x10
board. It worked well, but we were quite civilised when putting down
tokens, so no areas were cut off by token placement. For a general
game, it might be necessary with added limitations to avoid this.
I haven't played a full game with the crosses variant, but I once
enumerated the openings after 3 or 4 moves and found that there were a
good deal more than in th estandard game. I don't have the papers
handy, so I can't tell you the exact numbers.
Torben
William Chang
>
> I haven't played a full game with the crosses variant, but I once
> enumerated the openings after 3 or 4 moves and found that there were a
> good deal more than in th estandard game. I don't have the papers
> handy, so I can't tell you the exact numbers.
Just want to confirm that you found more openings even without regard
to the "orientation" of the pieces. Thanks, -- William