Ryan McGuire
United States
South Euclid
Ohio
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...or am I missing something?
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Neuro Gamer
United States
Grand Prairie
Texas
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It seems that way. The 2nd player has to find a way to "break serve" or the outcome is somewhat inevitable.
Gg
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Neil Christiansen
United States
Mount Pleasant
Michigan
OOK! OOK! OOK!
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Not sure if I would say "tremendous" but there is an advantage.
This is why one should always play 2 games, reversing who moved first.
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny ÅšlÄ…sk
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There seems an advantage for white, though a stronger player will beat a weaker player in any case, so I'd not call it "tremendous".
In response, a black player may go for a tie by getting their queen close to the white queen (so that it's later impossible to surround one without surrounding both due to the shared neighbor space). That's too easy to achieve in standard Hive, so it's recommended to use the optional rule (implemented at boardspace.net) that you can't place your queen as your first move.
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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Another way to try to equalize the first player advantage is to require the first player to place an ant as his first move?
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny ÅšlÄ…sk
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I also imagined a (too coarse) pie rule: after the first player makes their move, the 2nd player can choose to take that side. But the pie rule is not so useful when there are only a half dozen possible opening moves.
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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russ wrote: But the pie rule is not so useful when there are only a half dozen possible opening moves.
I think you would want to let the first player make 2 or 3 moves and then the second player decide whether to switch.
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Ryan McGuire
United States
South Euclid
Ohio
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russ wrote: I also imagined a (too coarse) pie rule: after the first player makes their move, the 2nd player can choose to take that side. But the pie rule is not so useful when there are only a half dozen possible opening moves.
That sounds like a patch to make an otherwise lopsided game something resembling fair. Do you really want a rule that motivates a player to play sub-optimally just so that the other player won't want to trade sides?
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Jason Martin
Canada
Torbay
Newfoundland
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ryanker wrote: russ wrote: I also imagined a (too coarse) pie rule: after the first player makes their move, the 2nd player can choose to take that side. But the pie rule is not so useful when there are only a half dozen possible opening moves. :) That sounds like a patch to make an otherwise lopsided game something resembling fair. Do you really want a rule that motivates a player to play sub-optimally just so that the other player won't want to trade sides?
Well, I think that rule would result in most players switching, since white wins most often in Hive.
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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ryanker wrote: That sounds like a patch to make an otherwise lopsided game something resembling fair. Do you really want a rule that motivates a player to play sub-optimally just so that the other player won't want to trade sides?
Huh? The idea is to make the first player choose a balanced opening position, because if he chooses a position that favors either White or Black he knows his opponent will choose that.
Yes, of course he wants the first player not to choose the very best opening for White, that is the whole point. There are lots of other abstract games that are played this way. In checkers, the players don't choose the opening themselves, but it's drawn from a random set of those considered reasonably balanced. Some way of choosing a balanced starting position rather than starting with the obviously unbalanced position certainly seems like a potential improvement.
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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Anjohl wrote: Well, I think that rule would result in most players switching, since white wins most often in Hive.
Well, don't you think it might depend on what move the first player chooses?
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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DscGlfr wrote: The pie rule is and always will be the solution to the problem.
Do you think that one-move is enough, or do you need to specify more than one initial move to get a reasonably balanced position?
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Ryan McGuire
United States
South Euclid
Ohio
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DaviddesJ wrote: Huh? The idea is to make the first player choose a balanced opening position, because if he chooses a position that favors either White or Black he knows his opponent will choose that.
Yes, I understand the concept. That still doesn't make such a band aid rule a good one. The band aid is an arguably reasonable fix for a basic problem with the rule set.
Why would we, as potential rule makers, want to develop a rule set that motivates either player make weak moves? Wouldn't you think that a game that drives both players to always pick the best move is just that much better?
Quote:
Yes, of course he wants the first player not to choose the very best opening for White, that is the whole point. There are lots of other abstract games that are played this way. In checkers, the players don't choose the opening themselves, but it's drawn from a random set of those considered reasonably balanced. Some way of choosing a balanced starting position rather than starting with the obviously unbalanced position certainly seems like a potential improvement.
Agreed.
The fix isn't bad in and of itself. However the fact that it (or some other possible fix) is needed points to a problem with the underlying game. The fact that lots of other games have the same problem doesn't detract from that.
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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ryanker wrote: Why would we, as potential rule makers, want to develop a rule set that motivates either player make weak moves?
The pie rule doesn't motivate anyone to make weak moves. It motivates the first player, who's choosing the opening position, to choose the position that is the most balanced. Creating a very balanced position is therefore a strong move. A very unbalanced position, in favor of either Black or White, becomes a weak move.
Quote: The fix isn't bad in and of itself. However the fact that it (or some other possible fix) is needed points to a problem with the underlying game. The fact that lots of other games have the same problem doesn't detract from that.
The fact is that virtually all games like this have the same problem. Checkers uses ballots, Go uses komi, Hex uses the pie rule. Every game of this type is going to need some such system if it's going to be balanced; you can't call it a "problem" when it is inherent to the nature of such games.
What is your alternative?
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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DscGlfr wrote: I do, but it's only because any other solution would alter the game too much in my opinion.
What's wrong with a 3-move ballot? It seems to me you would still start from a normal-looking position and have a normal-looking game, it would just be from a position that is roughly fair. It works in checkers.
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David desJardins
United States
Burlingame
California
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DscGlfr wrote: The problem is, if white plays a balanced initial move, then black can respond with a poor move and on his/her next turn, take control of white.
If white does not play a balanced initial move, black will simply not opt to take control of white.
That's not what a 3-move ballot is. A 3-move ballot means that Player 1 makes the first three moves (White, Black, White) and then Player 2 decides whether he wants to play White or Black in the resulting position.
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Ryan McGuire
United States
South Euclid
Ohio
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DaviddesJ wrote: The pie rule doesn't motivate anyone to make weak moves. It motivates the first player, who's choosing the opening position, to choose the position that is the most balanced. Creating a very balanced position is therefore a strong move. A very unbalanced position, in favor of either Black or White, becomes a weak move.
Ok, I see what you're saying.
If you say the players choose colors at the beginning of game and then Black has the choice of trading after X number of moves, then White's first couple moves are likely to be sub-optimal for him. On the other hand, if the players don't "own" the colors initially, then no player is making bad moves for himself.
Gotcha. I'm on board now.
Quote: The fact is that virtually all games like this have the same problem. Checkers uses ballots, Go uses komi, Hex uses the pie rule. Every game of this type is going to need some such system if it's going to be balanced; you can't call it a "problem" when it is inherent to the nature of such games.
Yes I can... quite easily in fact. That's not to say I think we should scrap all those games.
I just hate special rules that have to be tacked on because applying the same rules throughout the game leads to either highly unbalanced outcomes or way too many draws. It would be more satisfying to have base rules that apply to all moves.
Quote: What is your alternative?
I don't necessarily have one. But that's not to say there isn't one or that we should stop trying to solve the same basic problem in new ways. Maybe the pie rule... maybe simultaneous movement... maybe a set opening configuration like in Othello/Reversi.
So yes, the pie rule (or maybe something else) can fix the first turn advantage. But the fact that a fix is needed "proves" that there's an issue to begin with.
[Edit: Just spelling, punctuation and formatting.]
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny ÅšlÄ…sk
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DscGlfr wrote: ryanker wrote:
So yes, the pie rule (or maybe something else) can fix the first turn advantage. But the fact that a fix is needed "proves" that there's an issue to begin with.
Yes, but the issue exists in almost every abstract-strategy game.
Exists in theory, in any case. (Well, setting aside games where ties are possible, in which case in theory it's possible to be truly balanced.)
In practice there seem to be a fair number of games with no clear significant advantage for one side or the other. (E.g. supposedly in Arimaa "Neither side has a distinguishable advantage" even after a very large number of games, analysis, tournaments, AI programs developed, etc.)
I get where Ryan is coming from; ideally the advantage would not be as large as it is in Hive.
But I don't see the pie rule as necessarily a terrible thing. But it does require a sort of meta-thinking at the beginning. Players often feel an emotional attachment to "their color" and don't want to make a "suboptimal" move, even though as David said, they're not making a "suboptimal" move as a player, just a suboptimal move for that color. There was a recent thread about this in the "Abstract Games" subforum:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/513596/the-pie-rule-great-or...
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Jeff Huter (SlothNinja)
United States
McCordsville
Indiana
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Quote: Do you think that one-move is enough, or do you need to specify more than one initial move to get a reasonably balanced position?
I suspect more than one move would be needed. I'm thinking "black" chooses which side to play, after "white" places his queen. Assuming, the boardspace rule of no queen opening, at least three moves ( W, B, W) will be made before sides are chosen, but it could be as many as seven.
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Dan Dolan
United States
Highland Lakes
New Jersey
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I haven't found it to be too big an advantage to go first. After 2 or 3 pieces are on the table things tend t oget scrambled up pretty well.
The first player has the initative early on but that can be quite fleeting.
No way is going first a "tremendous" advantage.
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Many 2-player games suffer this, although I wonder statisically what the break-out is?
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Jason Martin
Canada
Torbay
Newfoundland
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ryanker wrote: ...or am I missing something?
I think it does, but like any "White moves first" game, you should alternate sides in an even amount of games to determine the series winner.
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David Odum
United States
Holdenville
Oklahoma
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On a possibly related note: in Halo, red wins more often then blue. I think the stat when I read about it may have been as high as 60%-40%. Cool, huh?
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Sky Zero
United States
Illinois
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Has anyone considered player 1 puts down the first tile and then player two gets to put down 2 tiles? after that, it's 1 tile to 1 tile moves. Seems pretty even to me.
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Yannick Huijsman
Netherlands
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How about making Black the winner in case of a draw?
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