Let's Get Physical

Some industrious Tak attendees left these behind at their stations

Hello, all!

The core ideas of this post have been rolling around in my head, attempting to materialize, since the GenCon Tak Tournament. During those 4 days, I played more physical games of Tak than I have in the past 2 years. Up until that point, I almost exclusively played Tak online. The main reason for this is I live in the middle of the woods. So, my closest physical opponents are 7 and 9 years old with interest in Tak that waxes and wanes, like, well, 7 and 9 year olds :)

During our game tonight, Wee Red made the Parthenon

Not only was GenCon the greatest concentration of physical games in my Tak experience, it was also the only physical tournament that I have been involved in. Some interesting nuances are involved in playing on a physical board. In this post I would like to explore a few of those nuances, especially those regarding tournament play.

The GenCon tournament was managed with the following philosophy in mind:  Each player was responsible for refereeing their own game. Officials could be called in at any time for disputes, but, on the whole, each player was responsible for:  watching their time, monitoring their opponent's time, spotting any illegal moves, and recording game/match results. Players were also responsible for declaring a win.

This may not seem surprising to those of you that have participated in physical chess tournaments or something similar. But, to me, it was vastly different from online tournaments where the computer keeps track of time, prohibits illegal moves, automatically searches for win conditions after every move, and even organizes the pieces for you.

Another interesting thing about physical gameplay was the organic decision to change from a contact-style end turn condition to a clock-based one. Players were allowed to change their movement or placement decisions up until they depressed the clock button. This rule moves away from chess in an intuitive way; in Tak, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain contact, as you are often handling multiple pieces while moving stacks.

One major takeaway from this tournament was that we should make a concerted effort to alter our online play experience to more closely mirror in-person, tournament play. I am not saying that we should let people make illegal moves online, as I think that these training wheels are very important for new players. However, I did come up with 2 suggestions for changes that I feel would benefit players of all levels.

Here's how I think it could go:

3 buttons would need to be added to the notation area of the gameplay screen - 'Reset', 'End Turn', and 'Declare Win'. Programmer-defined hotkeys (or user-defined ones) could also be used for these. I would suggest 'alt' or 'ctrl' for the 'End Turn' hotkey, as they would accommodate both left- and right-handed players. 'Declare Win' could be the other key + D. These are just spitballs; experimentation with different keys and key combinations is most likely needed.

'End Turn' -- Instead of your turn ending when you place a stone or move a stack, you would be free to undo and redo moves until you were satisfied. Then, you would press 'End Turn'. This button would act the same way that a physical chess timer works; it would stop your time and start your opponent's. I think this method is superior to our current system because it would substantially reduce the instances of 'misclicks' as well as giving players freedom to try out moves before committing to them. 

'Reset' -- this button would be used any time you decided to change your move before submitting it with either of the other 2 buttons discussed here. Pressing this button simply resets the board as it was at the beginning of your turn.

'Declare Win' is very similar to 'End Turn'. It ends your turn, but, before play transfers over to your opponent, this button also prompts the computer to run an analysis of the board state, searching for win conditions. If win conditions are present, then the appropriate player gets the win. If win conditions are not present, the player is notified of this. 'Declare Win' must be used during your turn.

A time out would prompt a win check and would include pieces on the board that had be placed/moved but not submitted.

As an added bonus, these suggestions would allow FriendlyBot to actually call "tak" instead of simply waiting an extra amount of time before taking the win. FriendlyBot would evaluate the board state, message the opponent "Tak", and then wait 30 seconds before pressing 'Declare Win', giving the opponent time to request an undo.

I am not a programmer, but I believe all of the mechanics for these suggestions are already in place within playtak, they would just need to be teased out and made separate, controllable commands instead of automatic ones.

I know our access to playtak programming is limited, so maybe this could be written into Treff's fork?


TL;DR

• Online play should recreate physical play while still enhancing it.
• The GenCon tournament (on physical boards) required players to declare a win.
• This tournament also let players experiment with their move/placement up until pressing the clock.

• Therefore, I have come up with a suggestion for adding these elements into our online play while still retaining the benefits of online play (access to human and AI opponents, board and piece organization, keeping track of time, recording results, etc.)

Let me know what you think. My general philosophy is that everything is up for debate, so feel free to attack any and all points you disagree with.