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About Breakthrough strategy
Hello Ludo3543,
Saturday, June 09, 2001, 8:46:25 PM, you wrote:
> Do you have a documentation on the strategy of openings to Breakthrough ?
> If yes, are you able to send him to me, under shape of attached file?
This might be interesting to more players so I will respond to the
list.
Unfortunately, I do not have any 'opening-strategy' on the game of
Breakthrough!
I just 'bumped' into the game when I was browsing(surfing) on
boardgames.about.com, and the game interested me immediately because
of the easy rules.
This was just a few weeks ago.
The game is, apparently, invented just a year ago! So the game is very
fresh and new. I'm not aware of any opening strategy.
About my experience with the game:
I have build my 'doorbraak(breakthrough)' application in the last
week, and played the 7x7 game against three of my collegues at work.
They have helped me a bit with suggestions for the application. As you
might have guessed: I'm a software engineer over here in the
Netherlands...
In the games I've played I have noticed a few things, which you can
also read in the 'about' screen of my application at
http://home.soneraplaza.nl/mw/prive/mkoning/files/files.html
(Look at the marbles, I've just changed them to plains! :-)
About the strategy:
-The game can never end in a draw. There will always be a winner.
-Place two stones adjacent to each other to 'block' a passage. One opponent
stone can never cross such a defence.
(however, two stones CAN cross such a line!)
-Carefully plan your forward movement! Your stones can NOT move back!
-Capturing a stone when the stone will be immediately captured 'back' is not so
beneficial: It costs you one move forward. (You already mastered this,
I see you did not take my stone when you could, you chose to defend
instead and I think that you did a good move by that).
Anyway: Not the 'opening' is interesting, but the more interesting is the ENDGAME!
For example, I have discovered in my games against my collegues that
'suddenly' somebody is the winner. For example, if I as 'x'
reach the following position, than I have won:
1 o o o o o o o o 1 Ohs (o) pije
2 . . . . . . o . 2
3 . O x x . . . . 3
4 . o o . x o . . 4
5 o . . . . . o . 5
6 . . x x . . . . 6
7 x . . . x . . x 7
8 x x . . . . . x 8 Eks (x) melle
H G F E D C B A
The interesting position here are the three 'xxx' at
F3, E3, D4.
Note that 'o' has far more stones than 'x'. This however does not help
'o' from losing the game.
If the D4 stone is moved one forward, x wins...
this is because I reach the following position:
o o o o o
. . . . .
. x x x .
In this simple position, 'o' cannot prevent 'x' from reaching the last
line! The middle stone 'x' will be moved one forward and the game is
won for 'x'. Work this out for yourself! Try to think of a move for
'o' that prevents 'x' from winning the game and work it out..
This also means you can work 'back' from the previous position.
Suppose we put the D4 stone on E5 and I was in this position:
1 o o o o o o o o 1 Ohs (o) pije
2 . . . . . . o . 2
3 . O x x . . . . 3
4 . o o . . o . . 4
5 o . . x . . o . 5
6 . . x x . . . . 6
7 x . . . x . . x 7
8 x x . . . . . x 8 Eks (x) melle
H G F E D C B A
I would move E5 ahead (forward or to the right), and NOT capture your
stone at F4, because you would be able to capture it back.
However in the above position you would have prevented a breakthrough by moving
B1-C2, which prevents me from reaching the 'xxx' position at FED-3.
There are alot of variations on such ending positions, imagine what
variations happens when one 'o' is missing from the endline and x
comes with two stones instead of three or things that might happen in
the corners of the board. However, I do not know all of
the variations from the top of my head...I'll find out more when I
lose the game against my collegues :)
Hope this helps,
--
Groeten,
Melle mailto:mkoning@multiweb.nl