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I just played my first two games of Blokus Duo. I lost both games, but I was pleased with the game.
I had some prior experience with the ordinary blokus, and because of that, I had some expectations regarding the two-player game
(1) I expected the game to be less chaotic, since there are only two players instead of four.
(2) In the four-player game, typically two players share each territory. I expected this to happen also in the two-player game, and hence I expected that it is very difficult to gain an edge in the early or a middle game.
My expectation (1) turned out to be true. In the four-player game you usually do not get an optimum opposition in every battle, since your opponent may choose to play into another battle with another player instead of your battle. In the two-player game, you get the optimum opposition in each battle. This makes the two-player game less forgiving than the four-player game, but it is also easier to predict your opponent's moves.
My expectation (2) turned out to be false. It is indeed possible to block your opponent off certain regions of the board, and one of the deciding factors in both games was that my opponent was better than me in finding "sealing moves" that forced me to use my small pieces to gain an access to her territory. In both games my opponent also managed to seal off a region in the board, to which I did not have access. In the first game I also managed to create such a region, but it was smaller than the opponent's and in the second game I did not manage to create such a region. So it is indeed possible to gain a strategical advantage in the middle game, as opposed to tactical end-game advantages.
In particular, the long-skinny pieces turned out to be a burden, since they offer few corners for future plays, and when I used a long, skinny piece, my opponent usually gained an easy oppoturnity to block me.
As a conclusion, I strongly recommend Blokus duo for those players that find the normal Blokus too chaotic.
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