Pente (and variant) puzzles
Posted:
Oct 15, 2009, 9:24 PM
I'm going to try to collect links here to various forum posts (and other sites) which offer Pente (and variant) puzzles. I know we have a puzzle page here onsite, but there are a lot of puzzles and problems in the forum posts (and elsewhere) which haven't made it to that page yet.Perhaps if we get a good collection of links here when Dweebo has time he may create a separate forum section for them. Right now, they are mostly in the analysis section, which can make it difficult to find them... I'll start off with a couple which got me thinking of puzzles again- posted in a Polish forum. Perhaps one of our Polish players can translate the text to English for those of us who don't speak Polish. (We really only need a win in how many moves translation for the first puzzle because the second puzzle is a win in four for white; originally posted at Jumpin721's site- see link further down the page)
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Re: Pente (and variant) puzzles
Posted:
May 13, 2010, 11:08 AM
Puzzles for Pente
All puzzles are player 1 to move and win in X number of moves. The number of moves refers only to player 1's moves, so for player 1 to win in four moves, there will be 7 stones placed, four by player 1 and three by player 2. For White and Black, captures already made are in parentheses followed by their stones on the board. Only the first move of each puzzle solution is given. A few puzzles accidentally have two solutions and are marked with *.
Answers: I made a double chart so that you don't accidentally see the answer to the next puzzle.
1. k a. M7 2. g b. H7 3. c c. J8 4. d. L11 5. x e. K10 6. l f. H10 7. n g. N9 8. s,o h. J12 9. i,e i. J10 10. j. M13 11. c k. L9 12. r l. N13 13. a m. K7 14. c n. L6 15. h o. H9 16. e p. C17 17. u,q q. E10 18. t r. L8 19. m s. P9 20. b t. G10 21. i u. F11 22. j,v v. K8 23. p w. J9 24. l x. H8
Oh this is fantastic! Thanks very much Mark for posting all of these excellent puzzles!
It would be excellent if we could get these up on the Puzzles section in the Strategy Center here at Pente.org. I'll try to find out from Dweebo how to get that done.
Re: Pente (and variant) puzzles
Posted:
May 16, 2010, 2:50 AM
Thank you Mark for doing that. It must have taken a lot of time. Do you still have all of the old Pente Newsletters?
Three notes:
1) The puzzle "Sun of Qunicunx" comes with a special clause that must be mentioned for the puzzle to make sense. This is a "reverse logic" puzzle. A key clue is that this is supposed to be a real position. That is all the info the reader gets to try and win in only 3 moves. Knowing that it is a real position, the reader eventually realizes that there is only one way possible that this position could have been reached. This deduction is essential to figuring out how to solve in only 3 moves. The solver's thinking should start with, "It is White to move, and White is currently two stones ahead. Therefore, White must have made at least one capture at some point, and where could that possibly have happened ...? Etc.
2) If you are still looking for the author of Yin-Yang, this is actually my all-time favorite puzzle creation. It was the first time I utilized the newly realized mechanic of a first move that has no direct threat, but instead sets up two possible threats to occur. Black can only block one threat, and White then wins with the other threat. This mechanic was the eventual inspiration for the full-blown Qunicunx.
3) Concerning the name, "While the Germans are Cruxifying Kittens ...," Tom Braunlich said at the time he finished creating that puzzle that he had just seen a movie in which that line was part of the dialogue. Tom said that for some reason that puzzle reminded him of that line. "Why not?"
