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A tuff position in boat pente
Posted:
Nov 22, 2008, 4:56 AM
So, recently me and jayehoff played over a live board on his sail boat. we played this game here that I have recreated. me and jay decided to end the game as a draw, as others were waiting to play, and our game was endless. the game did go a few more stones deep, but the problem is they went beyond the 19x19 grid, which in boat pente over a "live board" is allowed to happen. but im curious if any see a side clearly winning on a 19x19 anytime soon.... "50 moves deep, & no land in sight"
white to move...
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: A tuff position in boat pente
Posted:
Nov 23, 2008, 2:35 AM
All I can see is right now is "Stack trace: org.apache.jasper.JasperException" etc. and I couldn't find a recent boat pente game between you and mers among your completed games list... sounds interesting, tho.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
Posts:
542
Registered:
May 9, 2002
From:
Northeast USA
Re: A tuff position in boat pente
Posted:
Nov 25, 2008, 9:05 PM
Wow, what a position! This is a great example of how boat pente rules can add complexity to the game, especially in the end game.
At this point, it doesn't appear that either side has any effective "force" moves so White has time here to play a building move to set up an attack. At first I was looking at something like C11 (which might be close to what was actually played if your game went off the edge of the board) but within the confines of the board this doesn't seem to go anywhere. I also looked at moves like E16 or E17, but again this doesn't seem to go anywhere.
After looking for quite a while, the best move I have come up with so far is 26. L15 which threatens a diagonal tria that is difficult to defend. Keep in mind that Black's most obvious forcing threat would be G9, and this can be neutralized if White plays H11 and C11 as necessary.
Black does not really have time to respond with a building move of its own since once the tria is made White has pretty decent continuation -- black should respond to this threat.
Black's defense consists of a "boat block" at M12 on the low side and either a "boat block" at D14 or a soft block at F16 on the high side. Keep in mind also that because of boat rules, the extension threat from M12 that Black would appear to have is ineffective so White does not have to worry about that.
If Black uses D14, white can extend to G15 and threaten to play G17 which would be tough (impossible?) to defend. If Black instead plays F16, the continuation for white on the high side is unclear. There might be ways to continue also with M16 or even K16 down the line but I haven't found one that really works. However, if white finds J9, this can cause real problems for Black. Black really must preempt this threat by playing H8 early. This allows white an extra move later, perhaps to extend to G15 to help in the high side continuation. There are many many variations and possibilities since this is such a complex position, but one scenario might play out this way: