FOLLOW-UP: Abalone

When we played Abalone recently (game 128), it just didn't feel as satisfying as it used to - at all.  I love games of pure strategy, and especially when they are as pure as this one, just a straight-up battle for territory between black pieces and white pieces.  After we played last time I read up on the game a little bit, and it turns out that in the standard set-up with all the white pieces starting on one side and all the black pieces starting on the other, that if the players are good, the one who goes first will win.  Because of this, alternative starting set-ups have been created for tournament play.  The set-up above is called the Belgian Daisy.  The set-up below is called the Germain Daisy.  For tonight we decided to try the German Daisy starting position.  This absolutely made for more interesting game play.  I didn't check the time, but it took us quite a while, and it really felt like a battle that we were both invested in.  (It also helped to get a refresher on the rules - and to know that one wins after having pushed off 6 of the opponents marbles, rather than having to push them ALL off!)
First move.  I decided I want to try to dominate the center early.

David is always better at games of territory (and visualization), and sure enough, he took first blood.
Before I knew it, David had two of my pieces.  I figured this was just going to play out like most of our games of this type, but I was determined to fight for the middle and stage a come-back.
I'm finally managing to hold the center.  Let's see how this goes.
But you can't just stay in the center; you need to venture out in order to take out some pieces, so here we are 2 to 2, and I'm feeling a little more hopeful, but I want to reconsolidate in the center.
And now I'm up 3 to 2.
Trying to get it back together.
I'm up 4 to 2, which is unheard of!
Eventually I was ahead 5 to 2, and I knew I could afford to lose some pieces, and I only needed one of his, so I focused on that marble on the far left and did nothing but try to trap it, which worked.
I don't know that I'll be able to take David down again in this game now that we've tried it once with this set-up.  I'm sure his neurons are working in the background on the next game already.  We yet need to try the Belgian Daisy starting position.  These new starting positions aren't quite as elegant as an across the board face-off between white and black, but they sure do play better!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BONUS: Special Events - CMC^3 and Thanksgiving

Image
These days it is me, David, and Jacob in the area, but it is rare that I get a photo of all three of us, as one of us generally has to take the picture.  This weekend we had the chance to meet fellow gamer Adam, a  math professor at CSU Fullerton, who gamed with us and took a picture of our family.  He was a keynote speaker at the CMC^3 Math Conference in Monterey, which is where we were this weekend.  I made sure to connect with him, as I had read in his bio that he has created a freshman-level class on problem solving based entirely on board games.  How cool is that?!?!?!?  I connected with him after his keynote address, and we decided to be in contact after dinner to see if gaming would work out, and it did!  As had we, he too had brought a bag of board games along "just in case."  Below you see them all laid out on this table in the hotel lobby.  It was fun to see that so many of his games were ones we were familiar with (For Sale, Code Names, 7 Wonders, etc.), but som
Read more

Game 4: Huggermugger

Image
My son Jacob and I are the ones in the family who particularly enjoy word games, and since he and I were the only ones gaming tonight we reached for Huggermugger.  It's kind of a mash-up of Hangman, Trivial Pursuit, and Balderdash.  It's a game for 2 to 4 players or teams - though we've played with more in the past by simply adding an extra token. There are four categories: definitions (key), spelling (bee), unscramble (soup), and miscellaneous (horseshoes).  For miscellaneous you might be asked to find 12 words using the letters of another word, to find 10 words that rhyme with a given word, to complete a quote, etc. When you land on a numbered spot on the edge of the board, if you answer a question correctly, you get to look under the dial labeled with that number.  The goal of the game is to be the first person to determine the mystery word on the mystery wheel. If you guess wrong, you lose, but if you wait too long before guessing someone else might beat you t
Read more

Game 118: Cities and Knights of Catan

Image
  Cities and Knights of Catan is an expansion to Settlers of Catan .  It's been on our shelves for a LONG time (probably as long ago as 1998 when it first came out), but it's also been a long time since we played it; it's probably been over a decade at this point.  Normally if we're going in this "direction," we just grab the original Catan off the shelf.  I do remember playing this one quite a bit, though, in the early days, especially with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law Tony and Stacey.  I think this expansion is a very nice addition to the original game, but over the years David has tended to get more and more tired of extra complication, which is probably part of why we haven't played this in a long time.  Of course we have lots of other options of games to play too, so it's not JUST that.  Among the things this expansion adds are knights (and I've always been one for chivalry, so I'm all about that!) and barbarians and walled cities.
Read more