500 point giveaway!

[JohnGalt2341]

Quick very basic early game question since it continues to be the area where I feel most uncertain what to do in many common spots

https://imgur.com/a/RsCU6vE (I can't get the image to embed right now for some reason)

Where would you guys go here, and what's the reasoning or plan behind it? I already moved so no cheating of course

edit: Okay, now it has numbers to refer to

I would definitely move to number #5. It's difficult for me to explain why exactly but if I moved to #5 I would almost certainly outplay him on that side. If he doesn't play that side correctly he will end up with an unbalanced edge. And even if he does play that side correctly he will still get outplayed on that side because Purple should end up getting an extra move out of it.

[blankoblanco]

Cool thanks! That's the move I played as well, and what you said lined up pretty much with what I was thinking

[blankoblanco]

Got challenged by Mr. Bruno, should be my biggest test so far unless he has a bad game like aragon did. My guess I'm going to get outplayed early (and am probably already being outplayed), but it's been a good run either way

[JohnGalt2341]

Got challenged by My. Bruno, should be my biggest test so far unless he has a bad game like aragon did. My guess I'm going to get outplayed early (and am probably already being outplayed), but it's been a good run either way

Congrats on your wins vs Gulin and winbig2! Did you ever think you'd win your first 10 games in the ladder? Looks like you are going to take out Chair-Man as well and you are playing well early vs sht10 so... 12-0 looks likely!

Your analysis vs Bruno is pretty much what I would have said as well. And I agree... he's outplaying you right now(move #9). If you were playing someone with better side-play I think I would probably put you at +200 in this game right now... but because Bruno's side-play is fairly dreadful... I would say this game is a coin flip right now. I will definitely be watching this game.


Let's take a look at the current top 3 rankings below:

1	§Ryan	2	2	no	0
2	blankoblanco	2	1	yes	0
3	Holden2341	1	1	no	0

It's only a matter of time until Toptal or Ryan ask themselves "Who's this blanko guy? Let's see if this guy is any good!"

[blankoblanco]

Thanks man

Yeah, I was honestly just excited to actually get my very first win (not by timeout) and have a few things start to click. 10-0 is pretty crazy especially considering how erratic some of my early game play can be. Just seems like outplaying on the sides tends to be enough to beat the middle of the pack, and I obviously owe you and this thread a ton for what I've learned in that area

I was thinking it's pretty funny and cool that this thread might be the single greatest source for Hexversi strategy that exists on the internet. If you google Hexversi, not a lot else comes up. I just hope the other players on IYT don't discover it!

[JohnGalt2341]

Thanks man

Yeah, I was honestly just excited to actually get my very first win (not by timeout) and have a few things start to click. 10-0 is pretty crazy especially considering how erratic some of my early game play can be. Just seems like outplaying on the sides tends to be enough to beat the middle of the pack, and I obviously owe you and this thread a ton for what I've learned in that area

I was thinking it's pretty funny and cool that this thread might be the single greatest source for Hexversi strategy that exists on the internet. If you google Hexversi, not a lot else comes up. I just hope the other players on IYT don't discover it!

I think you are probably right about this. I taught my nephew how to play Othello/Reversi in early 2007 before Hexversi came out. By the time Hexversi came out he was already good at Reversi so I never went over specific Hexversi strategy with him because the game was new to both of us at the time and I didn't know that it would be my new favorite. So... yeah... most of the stuff in this thread I've never really talked about to anyone.

I never thought about somebody googling Hexversi and this thread popping up. That's funny. I'm almost sort of hoping that some of the players in the ladder would read this thread. Especially the aggressive players. They're fun to play but I'm always hoping that they will improve.

It would be interesting to me to see if very experienced players with over 1000 games like Bruno or Butterbean would change their style if they read this thread. I'm thinking it might be easier to start from scratch. If Bruno knew how to play the sides correctly he would be a beast. But it's funny that you and Daniel know how to play the sides better than him and you have less than 1% of his experience.

[JohnGalt2341]

I just looked in on blanko's game vs sht10. This game is blowing my mind! blanko thoroughly outplays sht10 for the first 11 moves of the game and he taps out sht10 after 11 moves. This is some high level Hexversi jujitsu right here. This game should be as good as over right??? However... because of the unusual state of the board blanko cannot immediately take advantage of the situation so he must think of a way to let sht10 back into the game. And this is not an easy decision here...

I know where I would have moved but I'm not sure if it was any better than your move. And now... sht10 has worked himself back into the game... this is a good one!

I must state how rare it is for a board like the one above. It almost never happens like this, at least not in my games and when it does it's usually not nearly as difficult to let them back into the game. You usually have better options. I can almost always snag a corner when I run someone out of moves. The board above is incredibly rare.

This is a great game though... I must say. In most games many of the decisions are fairly easy ones for me. I know where I should move within a few seconds. But in your game, nearly every single decision you had to make was a difficult one for me after the move above. You made some mistakes but every single move was a difficult one. This game is really interesting to me.

[blankoblanco]

I appreciate you saying so because I was thoroughly mindf**ked by that situation and had no idea how to take advantage of it. I was even considering not taking the edge at all assuming he eventually would and attempting the unbalanced edge route.

But yeah, it's very weird to run the opponent out of moves that early when it seems like you can't actually use it to your advantage in particular

I considered posting about this myself because it was so confusing to me

[JohnGalt2341]

I was just looking at blanko's game vs chair-man move #31 Green to move. And I noticed it looks like you are about to be in a really tough position. This is another very unusual board where it looks as if Green is going to be extremely fortunate and it most likely happened by chance that Green was able to block Purple from wedging in. Some people are really good at blocking angles but in this game I would bet that it just happened by chance. If you can figure out a way to resolve this in this game I will be very impressed.

[JohnGalt2341]

Edit

[blankoblanco]

It's all crumbling around me! 10-0 into 0-3 incoming

[blankoblanco]

Hope is forming in a couple of those games

sht's move #29 was interesting to say the least. He must have thought I was legally obligated to immediately take the corner

[JohnGalt2341]

Hope is forming in a couple of those games

sht's move #29 was interesting to say the least. He must have thought I was legally obligated to immediately take the corner

I think you could win all 3 of these games now. It looks as if you solved the puzzle in the game with Chair Man... at least I hope you see it. Nice work on that!

#29 for sht10 was terrible indeed. It was pretty close before that.

[blankoblanco]

I also think I've solved the puzzle vs Chair Man, from either side, potentially, depending on what he plays. I definitely am enacting a plan. Spent so much time looking at every angle. All we can do is see if I am right/wrong or if I screw it up. Chair Man plays kinda slow so this is gonna spread out over some days probably

[JohnGalt2341]

Correct! Nice work! I didn't think you would get this one. I think you may be ready for Ryan or Toptal. This is a fairly brilliant move IMO. Here's why: In the board below you can see that in spot A green doesn't have a move there. Purple was saving that move for later. This is a tactic that I use myself in many if not most of my games. However, when using this tactic you have to be careful that your opponent doesn't create a move in the spot that you are saving if this is possible. By moving to #7 I am creating a move for myself in spot A which I will be moving to next assuming(he hasn't moved yet) he takes the corner. I suspect he will move to spot 8 after that. It doesn't really matter where he moves because there is nothing he can do to stop me from moving to spot B next and then spot 4. The move to spot B was also created by moving to #7. So... in the entire sequence I will be getting 4 moves and he will be getting only 2 and he'll have to use 2 moves elsewhere. AND, I was able to get the spot he was saving... this is HUGE because it takes away one of his moves and it gives me a move at the same time. This is like intercepting a pass in your own end zone and then running it back for a touchdown.

I'm nearly certain I will win this game unless there is something I am overlooking. Btw, I think Purple would be wise not to take the corner here because this is a dreadful exchange for Purple. Purple would be better off giving me the corner and taking spot A for himself. Either way... I'm pretty sure I will win. It's a cramped board so I expect it to be close.

Turns out... there was something I was definitely overlooking. I knew he would be able to create one extra move but I didn't see the other one. In the final 10 moves I had to move 1st and 3rd in a section of 4(in sections of 4 it's usually best to move 2nd and 4th). And he was able to move 1st and 3rd in two different sections of 3(this is optimal in sections of 3). That was enough for him to win the game.

I'm still pretty sure I played move #32 correctly but I think I should have played move #34 differently. Just goes to show you... I'm not unbeatable. I won my other games in my division and it looks like my nephew will as well so... when the next round starts up in the next week or 2... it will either be 2 divisions of 3 people each or one division of 5 people.

I'd be curious to see how you guys would do against my nephew because although I would say he's an overall better player I think there are probably things about the sides that you guys may understand better than he does because I don't believe I've ever talked to him about specific Hexversi strategies like I have with you guys. This is mostly because when I taught him how to play Reversi... Hexversi didn't exist yet.

I think Jon is the only player not to lose at least one game in this tourney so far... I'd be shocked if he goes undefeated in this tourney. The next round should be a lot of fun... I'm just glad I made it to the next round.

[blankoblanco]

Wow, pretty shocking to see you lose one, but nice to see it's still possible, ha

Congrats on making it to the next round. Time to win the whole damn thing

I'm looking forward to the next tournament. Hopefully I can clean up my early play a bit before then and stop digging myself into holes

[JohnGalt2341]

Wow, pretty shocking to see you lose one, but nice to see it's still possible, ha

Congrats on making it to the next round. Time to win the whole damn thing

I'm looking forward to the next tournament. Hopefully I can clean up my early play a bit before then and stop digging myself into holes

Yeah, I knew it had been a long time since I lost a game so I counted up the games in my win streak... including Ladder, Regular, and Tourney.... 62 games. Oh well... at least I still have my ladder streak alive at 39.


I'm looking forward to the next tourney as well. If FGYTPeti wins his remaining games then there will be 2 divisions of 3 players in the next round... but if he loses a game then there will be just 1 division of 5 players. I'm torn on this because... I believe FGYTPeti is the 2nd best player in the tournament and he deserves to be in the finals... but... he timed-out 2 games to the worst player in his division and he may lose one of his other games which would knock him out, but if he wins them then both he and aragon will advance. He swept aragon btw. But what sucks is... he's a slow player. If he advances there will definitely have to be a 4th round because there will be 2 sections in the 3rd round. But... if he gets knocked out there will only be 3 rounds total... assuming there is not tie in the 3rd. Long story short... if he advances... this tourney will last another 2 months minimum but if he doesn't advance it could be over by the time I finish my games in the next round... if I do well that is. Also... I'm really curious as to how my nephew and Jon would do against FGY but I don't want this tourney to last longer than it has to. But if I win the tourney and he's not in the finals... it won't be nearly as satisfying.

[blankoblanco]

I think you could win all 3 of these games now. It looks as if you solved the puzzle in the game with Chair Man... at least I hope you see it. Nice work on that!

No idea how I keep pulling these out. And now I'm getting my ass kicked by Frank!

[JohnGalt2341]

No idea how I keep pulling these out. And now I'm getting my ass kicked by Frank!

Congrats on the wins over sht10 and Bruno!

Interesting game you got going with Frank. I often find myself in positions like this vs players that I feel like I should be beating badly. I usually recover but in most of the games if they played it perfectly from a certain point(move #21 in your game) I think they could probably win the game. Fortunately their play is erratic enough that you can almost count on them to make a mistake. I think I would still probably predict that you'll win this one but I wouldn't want to be in your position... lol. I'm going to predict that Frank makes at least one terrible move before move 30. If you respond correctly I think you'll probably beat him.

[blankoblanco]

Yea, I'm sure I goofed up plenty, but I also feel like Frank's played surprisingly well and avoided many of the mistakes I expected him to make so far. He's definitely in control, but I have a few more chances to trip him up. If he plays it all out well and wins by shutting me out of plays then he earned it

[JohnGalt2341]

Yea, I'm sure I goofed up plenty, but I also feel like Frank's played surprisingly well and avoided many of the mistakes I expected him to make so far. He's definitely in control, but I have a few more chances to trip him up. If he plays it all out well and wins by shutting me out of plays then he earned it

Look who's #1 Congrats on going 13-0!

1	blankoblanco	0	1	no	0
2	§Ryan	2	2	no	0
3	Holden2341	2	2	no	0
4	Gulin	2	2	no	0
5	aragon	2	2	no	0
6	§winbig2	2	0	no	0
7	§Mr. Bruno - dump the disgraceful orange clown now!	2	1	no	0
8	§Joshua	0	2	no	0
9	§bodaciousbutterbean	2	1	no	0
10	§Scott Sitar	0	2	no	0

I just looked in on your game vs Frank... move #25 Purple to move. Let's see if Frank plays this correctly... if he does... I think you are deep shit. If not... I think you could still possibly win this one.

[Daniel Espinosa]

#1 Impressive!

[blankoblanco]

Thanks guys! It's crazy to think I was basically 0-4 in my previous games when I started ladder, never could have imagined I'd have this much success off the bat. Special thanks to John for not challenging me yet

I just looked in on your game vs Frank... move #25 Purple to move. Let's see if Frank plays this correctly... if he does... I think you are deep shit. If not... I think you could still possibly win this one.

This is precisely what I was thinking... and sure enough, he missed the move (which I followed up with on my turn). That would have just put me miles behind, now I may have a chance?

It's interesting to see someone who's played so much reversi/hexversi lacking certain fundamentals. I assume his thought process was "well if I play there, he's just going to eventually take that side anyway" but... well, obviously that thinking doesn't really make sense and a move is a helluva lot more valuable

[JohnGalt2341]

25 Point Hexversi Challenge

What's the best move for Green?

[blankoblanco]

I'm not so sure about this one but I'll take a shot. So, purple's next move wants to be 13 probably. 11 seems risky for purple because green might be able to make that corner available to themselves at some point

If green takes 13 themselves, purple can just balance the edge, so I don't think that accomplishes anything

I will try 12. This takes away 13 as a viable move for purple, and if they take that corner, we go to town on the wedge spots that are set up. It's possible this can be punished somehow, but I'm not seeing it

(My second guess would be 1 since it's just currently a safe move, but a) it could become unsafe depending on what happens on the left side and b) it's a move we could make whenever, so I'm guessing there's something better right now)

[JohnGalt2341]

I'm not so sure about this one but I'll take a shot. So, purple's next move wants to be 13 probably. 11 seems risky for purple because green might be able to make that corner available to themselves at some point

If green takes 13 themselves, purple can just balance the edge, so I don't think that accomplishes anything

I will try 12. This takes away 13 as a viable move for purple, and if they take that corner, we go to town on the wedge spots that are set up. It's possible this can be punished somehow, but I'm not seeing it

(My second guess would be 1 since it's just currently a safe move, but a) it could become unsafe depending on what happens on the left side and b) it's a move we could make whenever, so I'm guessing there's something better right now)

Nice job! Perfect analysis. This is a tournament game between FGYTPeti and maitreg that I'm waiting on to finish so the next round will start. FGYTPeti is definitely the better player. He timed out 2 games, so in order to advance he must win all 4 of his remaining games and the person he timed out to must lose at least 2 of their games. That player lost 4 games so now he just had to win his remaining games to stay alive. The game above is the last game he needs to win. Had he played spot #12 above I think he would have won the game easily and the next round would have 2 sections of 3 people. But he played the far riskier spot #1. This looks like a clever move at first glance but Purple responded with a move to spot #11. This turned out to be a rather brilliant move because no matter where Green moved on his next turn he was going to be giving up a corner shortly. Because of Green's mistake above he's now going to lose the game. This is a really interesting game. Green ran Purple out of moves after move #38 but he's still not going to have enough to win. That can happen on occasion but it's pretty rare. This is the 2nd time in the tourney where FGY lost a game to an awkward style. I was hoping FGY would make it to the finals but at least now it will be just 1 section of 5 people so it won't take nearly as long to finish.

I'm not sure if this link will work but I highly recommend looking at the game above...very interesting game IMO https://www.itsyourturn.com/pp?gm&g=...0629&t=3&gn=97 they are currently on move #40.

[blankoblanco]

Yeah, that link doesn't work for me but I was able to find the game. Looks like a lot of interesting and sort of complex board states! Ultimately, yeah, it does seem like it all came down to that move you hightlighted

Speaking of weird situations where you can get the move advantage but still lose or almost lose on points, check out the ending of my game against Frank! http://itsyourturn.com/pp?gm&s=1&g=15300068111043&m=81 (don't know if that will work, but I'm sure you can find it if it doesn't)

What a crazy game! The ending got really confusing and complicated for me. There were long diagonals I wanted to take, but then they screw over other diagonals. And near the end I had the dawning realization that the score is so close I probably need to find a way to eliminate purple's last move advantage

46-44 final score... how many times have you seen that!?

[JohnGalt2341]

Yeah, that link doesn't work for me but I was able to find the game. Looks like a lot of interesting and sort of complex board states! Ultimately, yeah, it does seem like it all came down to that move you hightlighted

Speaking of weird situations where you can get the move advantage but still lose or almost lose on points, check out the ending of my game against Frank! http://itsyourturn.com/pp?gm&s=1&g=15300068111043&m=81 (don't know if that will work, but I'm sure you can find it if it doesn't)

What a crazy game! The ending got really confusing and complicated for me. There were long diagonals I wanted to take, but then they screw over other diagonals. And near the end I had the dawning realization that the score is so close I probably need to find a way to eliminate purple's last move advantage

46-44 final score... how many times have you seen that!?

Nice job! That was some great endgame play right there. Move #38 and #39 were nice! You got both spots in a section of 2. This is great! And then getting 3 out of the last 4 moves starting at move #40 was also excellent! Well done!

Frank played well for much of the game but he made some dreadful plays starting at move #25. On move #33 I think a far better move for you would have been to the left of the same section you moved in. If he takes the corner you'll get 2 in return. If he doesn't take the corner you could use your free move. After that I think he would have been creating moves for you no matter where he went.

But anyhow.. a wins a win! Winning by 2 is definitely extra gratifying. It's the closest thing to winning in overtime I suppose. I've lost at least a couple of games 46-44 and one game 45-44. I've won some close ones like this as well... quite a few actually. My style of play practically specializes in winning close games. Check out the game below... I'm Green... look at how many corners I got...

[blankoblanco]

Wow, what an insane board. If I was purple I'd be totally baffled at how I lost that

re: move #33, I specifically remember looking at that move you're talking about, but I ended up deciding it could go very wrong if he played correctly, maybe I'm crazy or overthought it though

https://imgur.com/a/ZjIZVHE (I can't get these images to post, or they don't show up for me?? I do insert image, put in the URL and then nothing)


Basically, if I make move A, he can take, for example, move B and open up move C for himself. If I turn around and take the corner, isn't wedge spot D not guaranteed because he can deny it by taking that diagonal?

And because I thought this was gonna be a fight for pieces, I thought losing move C for myself was particularly disastrous

There's probably an error in my thought process so please tell me where I went astray (if what I wrote is even understandable lol)

[JohnGalt2341]

Wow, what an insane board. If I was purple I'd be totally baffled at how I lost that

re: move #33, I specifically remember looking at that move you're talking about, but I ended up deciding it could go very wrong if he played correctly, maybe I'm crazy or overthought it though

https://imgur.com/a/ZjIZVHE (I can't get these images to post, or they don't show up for me?? I do insert image, put in the URL and then nothing)


Basically, if I make move A, he can take, for example, move B and open up move C for himself. If I turn around and take the corner, isn't wedge spot D not guaranteed because he can deny it by taking that diagonal?

And because I thought this was gonna be a fight for pieces, I thought losing move C for myself was particularly disastrous

There's probably an error in my thought process so please tell me where I went astray (if what I wrote is even understandable lol)

I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying or not but I definitely would have taken move C.

[JohnGalt2341]

I think I may have been unclear in post #413. I meant far left. I like spot C here. My post was unclear.

[blankoblanco]

Ohh, crap I could've just taken C then! I don't know how the hell I overlooked that. Yeah, I thought you meant A (the spot directly to the left of where I went) so nvm everything I said is irrelevant

That's so simple I'm not sure how I missed it. And I really did go through that whole thought process above about A, I must have just not even looked at C, for some reason I wanted to play it later

I feel dumb

[JohnGalt2341]

Ohh, crap I could've just taken C then! I don't know how the hell I overlooked that. Yeah, I thought you meant A (the spot directly to the left of where I went) so nvm everything I said is irrelevant

That's so simple I'm not sure how I missed it. And I really did go through that whole thought process above about A, I must have just not even looked at C, for some reason I wanted to play it later

I feel dumb

It's real easy to miss good moves. Playing really well from start to finish... now that's hard to do. I like to review games I played from several years ago to see if I would still make the same moves today. Most of the time I do but it's not that uncommon for me to come across moves of mine where I think to myself "Why in the hell did I move here instead of here???"

I've played pretty consistently over the years but I think that's mostly because I already had a few hundred Reversi games under my belt before Hexversi was even a thing. But I bet if you reviewed your tourney games or your first few ladder games you would probably laugh(or cringe) at some of those moves you made just a month or 2 ago. That's a good sign really... it just shows how far you've come in such a short period of time. That's extremely rare for this game. Btw... before your first game of Hexversi had you ever played Othello/Reversi before?

[JohnGalt2341]

I just noticed Daniel is playing Toptal. I don't have time to do a full preview right now but I would obviously make Toptal the favorite but I definitely wouldn't count out Daniel. On move #4 right now... if Daniel can play Toptal like he played me I think he can win this one. My endgame is stronger(I think) than Toptal's but his opening to midgame is stronger than mine IMO. If Daniel can hang in there until move #24 or so I think he has a chance. I would love to see Daniel pull off the upset here. I'll definitely be watching this one!

[blankoblanco]

I'd played a little bit of reversi (but probably not since I was a kid). Had pretty much no grasp on any of the strategy, just knew that getting corners was important

Toptal's one of the top dogs on the ladder that I haven't played against yet, I'll be interested to see how this turns out. GL Daniel!