Unlur PBEM tournament

[Glenn Overby II <guardcaptain@earthlink.net>]

I posted the announcement below to the pbmserv-users list on February 24th, 
and followed it up on the Unlur group on Yahoo! a few days later.  The 
inventor of Unlur asked that I hold up starting the PBEM event until after 
the online World Championship concluded.  Those finals have just ended.

Six players have expressed a definite intent to enter: lyman, apostolis, 
chaz, mmammel, rrognlie, and scotty.  Three other players, jarrausi, 
bernhard, and lhh61, expressed interest without committment, and two whose 
gamerz.net user IDs are unknown have also written.

I'd like to get the first Richard's PBEM Server International Unlur 
Tournament under way in the next couple of weeks...say by May 1st.  The 
proposed time limit will be a maximum of 60 days per player to make all 
moves of the game, so a round will take at most four months and the 
tournament not over eight.  Probably it will be much faster.

It should be possible to follow all tourney games graphically, courtesy of 
an Unlur bot which deposits pretty pictures at:

http://www.math.lsu.edu/~wamelen/gamerz/Unlurlinks.html

(...and thanks to the owner for that service to the Unlur community!)

If you wish to play, please sign up or confirm your earlier registry.  Come 
join the fun!

Glenn
gamerz.net ID: overby
email: guardcaptain@earthlink.net

===== updated announcement follows =====

Abstract Games magazine recently held a contest for original game designs 
using
unequal forces.  The contest winner, Unlur, is beginning to attract 
worldwide
attention.

Unlur is a connection game, played on a hexagonal board.  Black is trying 
to
make a Y (connecting three alternating sides) without first making a line
(connecting two opposite sides).  White is trying to do the opposite.

White would ordinarily have a huge edge.  But the game begins with a unique
contract phase, as both players alternate putting Black pieces on the board
until one player or the other thinks they can win with Black.  That player 
then
passes, and the opponent places a first piece as White.

Games often last 20 turns or less for each side, and cannot be longer than 
46. (My longest here so far ended on the 29th turn, my shortest on the 
7th.)

An Unlur implementation exists on this server, thanks to Lyman Hurd.

==========

ANNOUNCING: the first Richard's PBEM Server International Unlur Tournament.

If you would like to play, send me an email at guardcaptain@earthlink.net.  
I
expect to organize the tournament in two rounds, playing four games per
round (possibly six in the final), requiring 50% score to advance. Some 
details will depend on the number of players, but you won't be playing more
than four tourney games at once (again, possibly six in the final).