HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Let's start off with TWIXT (was Re: What???)
From: tdunn@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tim Dunn)
Date: 11 Nov 1992 07:01:06 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: hairball.ecst.csuchico.edu

Andy Lipscomb writes:
>Connectivity is actually by distance 5^.5 (a knight-hop) exactly, and no
>connection may cross another.  A draw is possible.

I don't see it.  I'm familiar with the game, but don't clain anything
but a passing familarity with it.  How is this possible?

-- 
Meskimen's Law:
	There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to
	do it over.
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: nik@scs.leeds.ac.uk (Nik Silver)
Subject: Re: Mornington Crescent
Organization: The University of Leeds, School of Computer Studies
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 20:32:29 GMT

In article <MJD.92Nov10124318@saul.cis.upenn.edu>, mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu ("[*] The One True Cross") writes:
>
>This is probably the most abstract psychology game I've ever met. 
>I heard it from Ranjit Bhatnagar (ranjit@gradient.cis.upenn.edu).
>
>The rule is:
>
>	Players take turns naming stations from the London Underground.
>	Whomever is first to name the station `Mornington Crescent', wins.

Since mjd only heard this from a friend, he seems to have not heard of the
best part of the game.

Originally it was devised as part of the BBC Radio 4 programme ``I'm Sorry
I Haven't A Clue'' which is a spoof panel game. The two teams of panellist
would take it in turns to name stations, and along the way invoke
archaic (and, naturally, completely ficticious) rules and tactics. The
audience, always excellent, would Ooh and Ahh at all the clever plays and
this all made it an excellent listen. Particularly if you were listening
with someone who didn't know the rules...

For further information, look in the groups alt.games.mornington.cresent
(unfortunate spelling mistake in the group name, there) and
alt.comedy.british. Funny? Yes. Psychologically complex? No chance :-).

-- 
Nik ``nik@scs.leeds.ac.uk'' Silver
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: bcannard@hppcb36.mentorg.com (The Human Mi-Go)
Subject: Re: What???
Originator: bcannard@hppcb36
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 21:50:10 GMT
Reply-To: bob_cannard@mentorg.com
Organization: Best Buy Byakhees Inc.
Keywords: 
Followup-To: 


In article <1992Nov10.041838.25876@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:
|> Actually, three-dimensional tic-tac-toe is an easy first-player win,
|> with the following strategy:
|>   1. Play your first move in the centre.
|>   2. There are three 3x3 "planes" through the centre; your opponent's
|>      first move cannot lie on all of them.

You're using the wrong size board, you need 4x4x4 for an interesting game
of 3d tictactoe.

|> Errm, a corresponding argument proves that 4-d (or higher) tic-tac-toe
|> is a win for the first player too. But I wouldn't like to have to play
|> it blindfold if we had to number the spaces 1-81; I'd get too confused.
|> In fact, I think I'd get too confused however we numbered the spaces.

I believe there's a proof that tictactoe in n dimensions requires a
board of side n+1 to avoid trivial first-player wins. Check up Martin
Gardner's old Scientific American columns, I'm sure he's written
something on the subject.
-- 
bob_cannard@mentorg.com			"More dynamite!" - Theron Marks
From: tdunn@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tim Dunn)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Othello
Date: 11 Nov 1992 16:48:31 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: hairball.ecst.csuchico.edu

>Colin Springer writes:          Alan Baljeu 
>>  Othello Puzzle #1:           >     I'd go here:
>>   . o o o . x . .             >   . o o o . x . .
>>   . . o x o x . .             >   . . o x o x . o  <--
>>   . x x o x o x .             >   . x x o x o x .
>>   x x x x x x x .             >   x x x x x x x .
>>   x x x x o x o o             >   x x x x o x o o
>>   x x o o x o o .             >   x x o o x o o .
>>   x . x o o x . .             >   x . x o o x . .
>>   . x x x x x x .             >   . x x x x x x . 
>>White (o) to play and win decisively ...


    Now the board is:                So I'd go here:
     . o o o . x . .                 . o o o . x . .
     . . o x o x . o                 . . o x o x . o  
     . x x o x o o .                 . x x o x o o .
     x x x x x o x .                 x x x x x o x .
     x x x x o x o o                 x x x x O x O o
     x x o o x o o .                 x x o o x O O _
     x . x o o x . .                 x . x o o x X . <--
     . x x x x x x .                 . x x x x x x . 
                                                 ^
Unfortunately, it does not force white to give a corner,
as the pieces marked "O" are what will be flipped, and 
the place indicated by an underscore is still a safe place
for white to move next round.  However, this is not a 
decisive win on that last move.

-- 
Main's Law:
	For every action there is an equal and opposite government
	program.
From: mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu ("[*] The Power in the Streets")
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Chess on spherical boards.
Date: 11 Nov 92 22:45:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: saul.MJD.92Nov11174539
	<1992Nov11.161535.20791@cc.umontreal.ca>
	<1992Nov11.191304.19055@math.utexas.edu>
Organization: Eaters of Wisdom
In-reply-to: akessler@bernard.ma.utexas.edu's message of 11 Nov 92 19:13:04 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.191304.19055@math.utexas.edu> akessler@bernard.ma.utexas.edu (Adam Kessler) writes:
>   Spherical Chess: You would declare every boundry tile to be adjacent.
>   Alternately [I think preferably, but who am I?] you could have 
>   an "extra" square off of the chess board that was adjacent to every 
>   square on the border of the board.

    That's not enough, because chess is a geometric game, not a
topologic one.  You need to define what happens when a piece such as a
bishop moves through this square and out the other side without
stopping. 

    I question whether this is what you want anyway, because in standard
(plane-segment) chess a square is adjacent to three, five, or eight
others, but in your spherical chess, the special square is adjacent to
thirty (!) others.  (It might be an interesting variation; perhaps
strategy would center around control of the special square.)

    A good version of spherical chess would have all the squares be the
same, each adjacent to exactly eight others, or so it seems to me.
Perhaps you could accomplish it this way:

+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|A8|B8|C8|D8|E8|F8|G8|H8|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|A7|B7|C7|D7|E7|F7|G7|H7|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|A6|B6|C6|D6|E6|F6|G6|H6|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|A5|B5|C5|D5|E5|F5|G5|H5|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|A4|B4|C4|D4|E4|F4|G4|H4|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|A3|B3|C3|D3|E3|F3|G3|H3|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|A2|B2|C2|D2|E2|F2|G2|H2|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|A1|B1|C1|D1|E1|F1|G1|H1|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+

    First make file A adjacent to file H; square A,i (for some number i)
is orthogonally adjacent to H,i and diagonally adjacent to H,(i+1) and
H,(i-1) when these exist.  You now have a cylinder.

    Now pinch the ends together: x,g8 (for some letter x) is orthogonally
adjacent to (x+4 mod 8),8 and diagonally to (x+3 mod 8),8 and (x+5 mod
8),8.

    I think you'd at least want to tinker the castling rule, because the
rooks are not where you think: The queen's rook on A1 is already
adjacent to the king on E1 and the king's rook on H1, for example.

--

                And for to se, and eek for to be seye
Mark-Jason Dominus 	  			    mjd@central.cis.upenn.edu
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 10:13:06 EST
From: Jeff Raven <JAR129@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Kalah

Along the lines of a previous post regarding Awari, does anyone know
anything about whether Kalah has been solved? Like Awari, it is a Mancala
game - that is, a game where the board is basically rows of pits
with stones in them. My guess is that no one has really ever bothered to
solve it, since it's not exactly the world's most well-known game.

As for the person asking about Awari, it's been a while since I read
the rules, but I'll take a look at it tonight. It shouldn't be
difficult to implement a minimax or alpha-beta algorithm which would
allow the computer to play pretty well. A few weeks ago I wrote out
a fairly similar program to play Kalah, and at its most difficult level,
it creams me (I suppose being able to look nine moves ahead gives it a
slight advantage).

Next, does anyone know of any companies which sell some of the
less widespred games? You know, someplace where I could maybe get
a Kalah board, or maybe Nine Men's Morris?

Lastly, I managed to get ahold of the CFV for this group, and cut out
the Charter. If anyone's interested, I can post it.

Jeff Raven
jar129@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: brock@cs.UAlberta.CA (Mark Brockington)
Subject: Re: Othello
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:20:08 GMT

cmspring@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Colin Springer) writes:

>==========================
>  Othello Puzzle #1:
>   . o o o . x . .
>   . . o x o x . .
>   . x x o x o x .
>   x x x x x x x .
>   x x x x o x o o
>   x x o o x o o .
>   x . x o o x . .
>   . x x x x x x . 
>White (o) to play and win decisively ...

>Where would YOU go?

My program (and I) would probably play B2 in this situation ... diagonal 
control in this position is lethal for Black since he has a lack of free
moves.  All of Black's responses are have "instant" responses, which leave
White in the driver's seat.

My computer program says:

44. B2 wins for White.  The following line represents "perfect play" in this
position:  White wins by 14.

51  0  0  0 45  X 46 53 
52 44  0  X  0  X 60 57 
50  X  X  0  X  0  X 56 
 X  X  X  X  X  X  X 47 
 X  X  X  X  0  X  0  0 
 X  X  0  0  X  0  0 49 
 X 59  X  0  0  X 48 55 
58  X  X  X  X  X  X 54
--
Mark Brockington (brock@cs.ualberta.ca) 
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: darse@cs.UAlberta.CA (Darse Billings)
Subject: Re: New game: Think Small
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 22:49:27 GMT

dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE) writes:

>nik@scs.leeds.ac.uk (Nik Silver) writes...
>>	(1) Think of any whole number greater than or equal to 1.
>>	(2) Mail me with that number as the Subject line of your message.
>>	(3) After a certain date and time, whoever has mailed me the lowest
>>	    number THAT NO-ONE ELSE HAS SENT wins (and gets a small and
>>	    insignificant prize).
>>	(4) You may not enter more than once.

>Just so everybody knows, I sent the number 4.

>:-)

>Dave Ring
>dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu

Well then, I guess we don't win!

Curiously, consider the consequences if one player shows everyone else that
she has sent the number 1.  Now what do you do?  If everyone else acts
rationally, avoiding 1 because it is a sure loss, then she wins.  Therefore,
someone must act either irrationally, or superrationally!

This kind of disclosure certainly changes the nature of the game.  Thank-you
for illustrating this, Dave, and shame on you!  	:-)

						Cheers,  - Darse.

PS  Nik, could you please post the entire distribution of choices, along
    with the winner?  I'm sure many of us would like to check our hypotheses.
--

 - Darse Billings, 2065 CFC, 7 kyu.

Go is better than Chess.  Poker is more lucrative.  Sex is more fun.
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: akessler@bernard.ma.utexas.edu (Adam Kessler)
Subject: Re: Chess in non-euclidian space 
Organization: University of Texas at Austin Mathematics
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 19:13:04 GMT

In article royd@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Roy Daniel) writes:
>Here's a series of chess games that are very abstract: non-euclidian chess.
>
In topological terms when I say "sew" two tiles together it means to
declare them adjacent by fiat:

Spherical Chess: You would declare every boundry tile to be adjacent.
Alternately [I think preferably, but who am I?] you could have 
an "extra" square off of the chess board that was adjacent to every 
square on the border of the board. [This would correspond to a one 
point compactification of the plane.] These might not be too interesting  
unless you changed the position of the chess men since the
game would start very near check. [Excercise: How close to checkmate is it?]

Cylinderical Chess: Sew together the left and right sides of the board.
I.E., You would allow players to jump off the left side and
land on the right. Thus your rooks would be adjacent. [If you sewed the
board together the other way, your Queens would be adjacent, and the game
would start with Black in check. Excercise: Mate?.]

M\"oebius Band Chess: Same as cylinderical chess except that you sew the two
sides together with a twist. Now both the opponent's rooks sit right next
to each other.

Klein Bottle Chess: Now we sew the top and bottom on directly [the queens
now sit next to each other], and we sew the sides together with a twist [so
the opponent's rooks sit next to each other.]

Projective Plane Chess: Sew the top and bottom on with a twist, and sew the
left and right to each other with a twist. Note that now all four rooks are
adjacent to each other.

Compact 2-Manifold Chess: Now for the daddy of all "flat" chess variations:
Every two manifold has R^2 as a Universal Cover. Tile R^2 like a chess board
and lay it down on the Manifold of your choice. Now you have a "black and
white tiling" on your manifold. Put your pieces on it and play.

Grand-daddy of "flat" chess variations:
Topological Chess: Take arbitrary combinations of 2-manifolds, make each
into a 2-Manifold Chess board, and sew arbitrary tiles together.

R^2 Chess: This is my favorite. Play chess on R^2 tiled appropriately.
Since this is an unbounded chess board, you could:
 1) Move your Queen, rook, bishop, arbitrarily far away. This means
    that the enemy can never really escape you (unless you lose these pieces!)
 2) Pawns can never be promoted.
 3) One could quibble over the point at infinity.
As ridiculous as this sounds, you could probably impliment this on a computer
and just limit the board to some arbitrarily large number (4 trillion on a PC.)
Then your coordinates would be: BlackQueen(12345,548932), etc.

adam



Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 03:42:32 -0500 
From: "Jonathan R. Ferro" <jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Let's start off with TWIXT (was Re: What???)
	<1dn4ikINN94q@bigboote.WPI.EDU>

bdsm@fermat.WPI.EDU (Billy Don McConnell) writes:
> jadair@cs.utexas.edu (John S. Adair) writes:
> |> Jeff Sobotka@dvorak.amd.com writes
> |> >(Is there anybody out there???)
> |> Yes, there are others asking What...
> You know, if you think about it, maybe we're playing the game already!

Sigh.  Doesn't anybody read the newgroup messages anymore?

Anyway, to begin, has anybody started working towards a theory for the
old AH game TWIXT?  I haven't been able to work on it because I suck at
playing against myself with any kind of honesty, and I seem to be able
to crush anybody else I play against by just starting off with this
simple strategy and then playing reasonably until I win:

O = RED (opponent) (moves first)
@ = BLACK (me)

Note: only the central portion of the board is shown in this diagram.

           RED

   . . . . . . . . . .        1. RED plays.
   . . . . . . . . . .
B  . . . . . . . . . .  B     2. I play so as to block his longest possible
L  . . . . O1. . . . .  L        doublecross move
A  . . . . .\. . . . .  A     3. RED, eager to get a bridge, fails to
C  . . . . . O3. . . .  C        play with tempo.
K  . . . . . . . . . .  K     4. I jump out with a large doublecross and proceed
   . . . . @2. . . @4.           to march toward either of my goal sides.
   . . . . . . . . . .           Anytime one of my doublecrosses is threatened
   . . . . . . . . . .           I just fill it in.

           RED

I understand that the simple way for RED to attack me is to try to turn
the tables by playing, say, 3 at 4, but not having found opponents that
also realize this has prevented me from being able to work out what
happens beyond that point.

So, does anybody already know if this is a first- or second-player win?
If not, how about some more data on how the game progresses during an
even match?

Also, I'm not going to attempt to describe this game called HexMeister,
but I would like to hear from anyone who has heard of it and played it
and found a way for the second player to be in any position other than
totally hosed from the beginning of the game.  Thanks.

-- Jon Ferro               Einsprachigkeit ist heilbar
From: LIPSCOJA@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu (Andy Lipscomb)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Let's start off with TWIXT (was Re: What???)
Date: 10 Nov 92 23:37:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.1992Nov10.233716.3236
Organization: Vanderbilt University
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.21

> OK. You haven't stated the rules of Twixt, so I'm going to have to
> guess. Play alternates, and a turn consists of placing one of your
> pieces on an empty square. You win if you get a chain of your pieces
> between the opposite sides of the square board that have been designated
> as yours. Pieces that are diagonally adjacent are considered to be next
> to each other when we define "chain". Is that right?

Connectivity is actually by distance 5^.5 (a knight-hop) exactly, and no
connection may cross another.  A draw is possible.


Andy Lipscomb
lipscoja@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu (Bitnet: lipscoja@vuctrvax)
Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian.
From: dbush@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (David Bush)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Let's start off with TWIXT (was Re: What???)
Date: 13 Nov 92 02:40:39 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech Computer Science Dept, Blacksburg, VA


  Okay folks, I suppose it would be appropriate to define the rules of TwixT
before going any further .This is a 2-player game, or a 2-team game involving
4 players.
The board is a 24x24 square grid of holes. The holes
along the edges are referred to as border rows. The first player, red, attempts
to build an uninterrupted chain of linked pegs going from his/her "top" border
row to his/her "bottom" border row. The second player, black, tries to connect
the "left" and "right" border rows the same way. Since a link between pegs
is an uncrossable barrier to either side. It is impossible for both sides to
have a completed bridge. At the start, the board is empty of pegs. A move
consists of two parts:
1. Place one of your color pegs in any empty hole except along your opponent's
   border rows. (No one may play in the corners- the pegs don't fit!)
2. If it is possible to link two or more of your pegs on the board together,
   you may do so. Usually, you would want to, except in tight situations
   where you don't want to block yourself from making some future link. You
   could, for example, refrain from linking a peg just played, and then
   on some later move make the link (assuming the link has not been blocked),
   even though the peg you place is far removed from this link. A link may
   be played if the your two pegs are at opposite corners of a 2x3 rectangle
   (like a knight's move in chess) and there is no other link blocking your
   way.
For the 4-player variant, partners sit opposite each other around the board.
Moves proceed clockwise with no consultation. Only once during the game for
each team, a player may call out "privelege" which means the next player loses
his/her move, and play continues with the partner, meaning that team may
make two concecutive moves. Generally, being the first team to call privelege
is a disadvantage, so this feature is usually saved for the end of the game.

 Draws can occur when one player has an impenetrable barrier to the other,
but this barrier is not an uninterrupted chain of linked pegs. For example:

                H I J K L M
            10  * . . . . .
            11  .\@ . @ . @      *-RED  @-BLACK
            12  . * . @\./.        Note: only a portion of the board is shown.
            13  . .\* . @ .        Red's chain H10-I12-J14 is connected to the
            14  . . *\. . .        top, and J13-K15-J17 is connected to the
            15  . @ . * . .        bottom. Black's pegs prevent red from
            16  ./@ ./. . .        connecting these two chains.
            17  @ . * . . .

 I hope this explains how draws occur. This may not be as deep a game as chess,
go, or shogi, but there are some potent subtleties all the same. If anyone
would like to play an informal e-mail game please drop me a line. >:)

David "TwixT monster" Bush 301 Loudon #422 Blacksburg VA 24060 (703)951-7751
"They call me Mr. TwixT"  dbush@csugrad.cs.vt.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: baljeual@uther.calvin.edu (Alan Baljeu)
Subject: Re: World Othello Championships
Organization: Calvin College
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:17:40 GMT

keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:

>cmspring@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Colin Springer) writes:

>>The World Othello Championships took place last week, Wednesday November 4th
>>until Saturday November 7th.  After a 13-round Swiss tournament, four
>>players continued on to the semi-finals.  David Shaman of Great Britain
>>and Marc Tastet of France advanced to the Finals, and Tastet beat Shaman
>>2-0 in the best of 3 match.

>>This is only the third time a non-Japanese has won the World Championships!

>>The team competition was won by Great Britain.

>>I'll post more results and game transcripts when I get them (unless someone
>>else is able to post them first).

>>Congratulations to Marc and all the participants!

>Has Othello been "solved" by a computer?  That is, is the game simple
>enough that a computer can always play the "perfect" move?
>Or, it not, can a computer beat any human opponent at this game?
>Anyone know anything about this?

I don't know how good computers have gotten at this game, but Othello is not
yet solved.

Alan Baljeu
From: jeffs@dvorak.amd.com (Jeff Sobotka)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: What???
Date: 9 Nov 92 22:32:26 GMT
Organization: Inc.

...is this newsgroup supposed to be about???

(Is there anybody out there???)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: breuker@cs.rulimburg.nl (Dennis Breuker)
Subject: Re: World Othello Championships
Organization: University of Limburg, Maastricht
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 09:48:47 GMT

urban@sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov (Michael Urban) writes:

>In article <baljeual.721581460@uther> baljeual@uther.calvin.edu (Alan Baljeu) writes:
>>keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
>>
>>>Has Othello been "solved" by a computer?  That is, is the game simple
>>>enough that a computer can always play the "perfect" move?
>>>Or, it not, can a computer beat any human opponent at this game?
>>I don't know how good computers have gotten at this game, but Othello is not
>>yet solved.

>No, but they can look very deeply into the endgame.  Back in the
>PDP-11 Version 6 Unix days, I wrote a Reversi program that looked
>ahead through the entire (shrinking) endgame tree when there were (I
>think) eight vacant squares remaining.  Modern CPUs, and more
>sophisticated programming than I was doing, could probably improve
>this considerably.  I would hate to play against a computer that knew
>the entire game tree with twenty moves left...


In the 4th Computer Olympiad in London Jacco Gnodde and I entered
an Othello-playing program (Aida) which ended up 2nd (the winner was
a French program Jacp'Oth (if I remember correctly)). Aida runned on a
SUN SPARC-2, and can find the outcome of the game with 18-20 vacant squares
left. Sometimes it even find the outcome of the game with 29 vacant squares
left, but this rarely happens.

>	Mike
>	Mike Urban

>	urban@cobra.jpl.nasa.gov

Dennis Breuker
(breuker@cs.rulimburg.nl)