GenCon Post Mortem & Puzzle #117

With my second GenCon in the books, and my routine somewhat recovered, I thought I'd take a few minutes and offer my thoughts on the event.

The USTA held 6 events this year:  3 Learn to Play/Casual events, 2 Swiss/Round Robin tournament qualifiers, and a Double Elimination finals containing the top 4 from each qualifier. All events were successful! We had a good turnout, no issues with equipment or people, and all who attended seemed to enjoy themselves. We welcome feedback about these events so that we can continue to cater to what the community wants. We have already received some tips for next year and will try to work those in to our plans.

We were lucky to have Greater than Games as our major sponsor this year. They provided the means to offer bigger prizes and, just as importantly, if not more so, they let us hold the finals in their demo room. While the play hall is nice for visibility, it lacks the professionalism and the reduced ambient noise that the demo room offers.

Being a bigger company than Cheapass Games means that GtG was able to advertise more at the convention. It was extremely nice to see Tak in big, bold letters in the main corridor at the convention, where 70,000 walked by throughout the long weekend. This kind of publicity should help our small game grow in popularity quicker than the word of mouth advertising we have been relying on.

                                                       

I got to see my puzzles in print after happening upon the Game Trade Magazine booth! This was exciting, as I have only seen the pdf proofs up until now.

Outside of the Tak events, I crammed in as much fun as I could. I participated in a one-off D&D session, survived the True Dungeon, stayed up way too late, played some new games, walked the exhibition hall, and made a couple crafted items for my kids. Even though I overbooked this year and had to skip 3 of my events because of reasons like eating, I regret nothing. I would rather pack it to bursting than waste time during this once a year happening.

                 

The most amazing part of GenCon:  the people that attend. It is incredible to be able to interact with such nice people that, while they may not share your exact interests, are willing to listen to you babble on about them...and then tell you about their interests with such passion that it makes you want to go out right now and try it. If you have never been, I highly recommend looking into it next year!

P.S. Here's a White-to-Move Tinue puzzle from one of the tournament qualifiers that I chanced upon:

A Proposed Method for FPA Compensation

First Player Advantage (FPA) Compensation

For instances when a match consists of a single game instead of a pair.

I enjoy playing both as Black and White in casual and tournament settings. The difference in strategies appeals to me, and, on size 6, the FPA is lessened enough (compared to size 5 and smaller) to make playing Black more than an exercise in futility when playing a skilled opponent.

However, this topic comes up frequently on the boards, and, since the playtak database is offline tonight and hindering my puzzle, I decided to flesh out an idea that has been bouncing around my head.

The goal of any FPA "solution" should be to maximize player satisfaction. FPA-compensated Tak should retain all the complexity of the standard game. The only difference should be that you walk away from the table satisfied that, after only 1 game, the declared winner played the better game.

For those unfamiliar with FPA in regards to Tak, it boils down to this: First Player can make a Tak threat first, forcing Second Player to either capture or place a wall. This initial pressure causes 4 intertwined disadvantages for the Second Player:

1. Second Player disrupts their board position in order to defend against this first salvo.

2. Second Player loses the opportunity to place a stone because they use a turn to capture. This affects their reserve stones, meaning that they are at a disadvantage during the end game because the first player with 1 stone remaining can decide when to end the game.

3. Second Player incurs prisoner liability as a result of the capture.

4. Second Player is not able to increase their flat count because of the capture.

These disadvantages can snowball, as a skilled First Player leverages them into an increasingly beneficial board state for themselves.

My presented FPA compensation is a combination of 3 methods that attempts to both reduce the initial momentum of this snowball and lessen its impact on the game's result.

1. Pie start (positional compensation)

First Player places 3 stones of each color.
Second Player chooses which color to play.

2.  Choose Cairn (prisoner liability and reserve stone compensation)

Second Player puts a flat stone from their reserve under an existing pie stone.

3. Komi (flat count compensation)

If the game ends by any means requiring a flat count, Black gets +1 to their flat count.

This solution can be easily adjusted as time goes by and more data is collected. Each part can be tweaked: the number of stones used in the pie start, the number of cairns, and the komi can all be increased or decreased, making this solution adaptable and customizable. It also leaves gameplay mechanics intact except for the initial stone placements.

I look forward to trying this out soon!

Puzzle #116: White to Play; White to Tinue

Hello, Takkers!

Another size 5 puzzle to help balance out the size 6 ones that nqeron is posting, this one comes from an Aaaarghbot game I played early in the week. It did not end in Tinue, but I found this branch while reviewing the game and thought it was a really interesting one.

For those new to my puzzles, I try my best to post one every other Saturday night (EST). They are usually one of the following types: Tinue (game ending via forced road), Tinue Avoidance (is there a way out?), Gaelet (game ending via flat count), and Best Move (what would you do, and why?).

The type featured tonight is a Tinue puzzle. Tinue is defined as a board state in which no matter what the opposing player does during their turn (White, in this instance), a road win will be awarded to the other player (Black) on their next turn. If you are familiar with Chess, Tinue is very similar to Checkmate.

The best way to solve these puzzles is to find a move that forces your opponent into doing something. Then, you use that forced move to force another move, until you have won. Sometimes there are more ways than 1 to go about this. While I love seeing the different variations, usually the shortest path to a forced win is considered best. The following is a simple example to show how this works (you can use the arrow keys to step through the moves and the number keys to select which branch you are following):




Please form your answer with PTN or a link to your solution via ptn.ninja. Also, be sure to use the spoiler tag so as not to ruin it for later puzzle solvers.

** I have noticed some people commenting directly to my blog post when answering puzzles. I would kindly ask that you post your answers on the appropriate post on the Reddit page for Tak (r/tak). This will make it easier for me to respond in a timely manner. On that note, I would like to also apologize to those same people for my delayed replies.

The new Reddit spoiler tag is shown below:

>!spoiler!<

Ex:  >!35. a3> 3b2+!<

Thank you and enjoy!!