From jankrihau@hotmail.com Tue Jul 27 12:15:58 CDT 2004
Article: 3518 of rec.games.abstract
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From: jankrihau@hotmail.com (Jan Kristian Haugland)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Connect-Five
Date: 27 Jul 2004 03:15:23 -0700
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jdallen2000@yahoo.com (James Dow Allen) wrote in message news:<266426e1.0407222240.4b23eee0@posting.google.com>...
> If you've invested in a 6-by-7 Connect-Four set, try Connect-Five.
> It's a good, challenging game, and more exciting than Connect-Four.
> 
> The rules are identical to Connect-Four with two changes:
>   (a) Five in a row win, not four.
>   (b) Player drops two stones on his turn, not one.  Exception
>      is that only one stone is dropped on the very first move, and,
>      perforce, on the 22nd move if the game lasts that long.
> 
> It was almost 20 years ago that someone showed me this variation
> (the one-stone first move to limit first player's advantage was
> my idea).  Perhaps it was her own idea, because I've never come
> across it again (except when I've introduced the variation to someone).
> 
> I don't know whether a win can be guaranteed, though a good computer
> programmer should be able to answer that.  Perhaps I'll crosspost to
> comp.programming.contests.
> 
> James D. Allen


A few weeks ago I read about a similar game, maybe in the PBeM forum.
Variations of games in which the players make two moves on each turn
instead of one are called double-move variations, I think. It is common
to let the first player make only one move on his/her first turn, so
I doubt you were the first to come up with that - sorry. ;-) But in the
variation I read about, the goal was still to make only FOUR in a row.
I haven't tried these variations, so I can't tell if four or five makes
the better game.

I have played a few games of double-move Y against myself, and even on
a small board with only 27 nodes I can't tell who wins with perfect play.
So I would also like to hear from someone who can solve problems like
these with computers. The playing board is shown on

http://home.no.net/zamunda/images/y/y27.gif

(it is constructed along the same principles as the "standard" 93 nodes
board) and the goal is to build a connected set of stones that is
connected to each of the three sides (and like in Hex, it is guaranteed
that one player has won when the board is full).

J K Haugland