[Ian]

This is from the same game between SBRIan and §sht10 that ended on October 20th. SBRIan is Purple. Purple played g8 here. This one hurt you quite a bit because now you are building a wall of exposed Purple pieces. This creates more options for your opponent. A much better move for you here would have been the FIPE at c8. The reason for this is because you wouldn't be flipping any exposed pieces. The notation I put in Gray, is future potential moves/options for Green after you made your move. By playing FIPE's, it generally creates fewer new moves for your opponent. FIPE's won't always be your best move, but they are more times than not.

This next one is a side-play move. Btw, don't worry about getting any of this wrong. Most players never figure any of this out, EVER. Side-play is the hardest part for most players to learn. This is sort of my specialty. If you can learn correct side-play, you should be able to beat at least 90% of the players in the Ladder.

There are generally 4 different ways a side can be played in Hexversi BEFORE the corner is captured. I made up some of this terminology specifically to Hexversi to help teach my brother. The 4 ways are: The Full 4, meaning you have pieces at g10, h9, i8, and j7. The Open 2, meaning you have pieces at g10 and j7, but h9 and i8 are empty. The Closed 2, meaning you have pieces at h9 and i8, but g10 and j7 are empty. All 3 of these are acceptable ways to play a side. And it doesn't matter what side you play it on. The one we want to avoid is the Unbalanced Edge or UE for short. Meaning you have pieces at g10, h9, and i8, but j7 is empty. OR, you have pieces at j7, i8, and h9 but g10 is empty. So, we ALWAYS want to have our sides balanced if possible. It's also okay to share sides with your opponent.

Okay, so now lets talk about this move. Purple played i8 here. So, in order for Purple achieve a Balanced Edge after playing i8, Purple will need to play h9 to get a Closed 2. This is going to be very difficult if not impossible. A much better move for Purple here is to play the FIPE at h8. And then depending on how Green responds, Purple can respond with either j7 OR h9. Don't worry if this doesn't make sense to you right now, I know this is a lot to take in. Learning side-play is the hardest part of Hexversi.


This one was pretty huge because you were still in the game at this point. Purple played a9 here. This isn't a terrible move or anything. But i1 would have been a FANTASTIC move here!! Here's why, once Purple plays i1, this forces Green to protect that Eastern corner, so Green must play h1. This is going to flip that wall of 4 horizontal Purples to Green. AND, now Green is going to have an Unbalanced Edge along that SE side. This is good for you, VERY GOOD. After Green plays h1, Purple can play h2, this will allow you to Gain Tempo.



I want to point out something else in the image above. The combo I just explained above, I have a name for this. I call it, "Running a player up on the side(i1), and finishing with the Sweep(h2)." Your opponent will now have a UE, and you just got 2 moves out of the deal and they got 1, which means you Gained Tempo. This is HUGE. One more thing I want to put out. Look at the North side in the image above. See that Purple triangle. That's not good to have because it makes you vulnerable to the exact same combo. This is why it wasn't good to play i8 for #17.

Because now if Green runs you up on the side by playing h9, and Purple takes the side by playing g10, and if Green finishes with the Sweep by playing g9, Purple will now have an Unbalanced Edge on that North side, AND Green will have Gained Tempo. The reason why UE's are bad to have is because they leave a Wedge spot. What this means is, it means your opponent can deliberately sacrifice a corner and then WEDGE in that wedge spot. This will give your opponent a corner of their own. And the reason why their corner is usually better than yours is because they will usually get AT LEAST one extra move out of the deal, and often several. And they will usually be able to work FROM their corner, where as the original corner will usually only be 4 or 5 permanent pieces. This is why it's NOT GOOD to have UE's. Creating and exploiting UE's is a HUGE part of my strategy.

Don't worry if this doesn't make sense to you right now. Once you figure out how to exploit players poor side-play, this game will become REALLY fun!

If ANYONE reading this has ANY questions.... let me know!

https://www.itsyourturn.com/pp?gm&g=...8102&t=1&gn=97

Thanks for all the hard work you put into these posts, Galt! I'll study these when I have some more time later tonight.

[JohnGalt2341]

Thanks for all the hard work you put into these posts, Galt! I'll study these when I have some more time later tonight.

No problem. These are all common mistakes and should help you in future games. And once you a get a few more games under your belt, this stuff should start making more sense. Let me know if you have any questions.

[jackpot269]

Bump

[jackpot269]

Bump

[jackpot269]

I wanted to point out a couple of things in our game. You played great early on! Your first real mistake didn't come until move #19 as seen in the image below. You played j5 here. A couple of things here, when you played j5, you are flipping 3 outside pieces. We want to avoid flipping outside pieces at all costs. Anytime you are flipping outside pieces it ALMOST ALWAYS means you are making a bad move. Because when you are flipping outside pieces it means you are creating a bunch of new moves for your opponent. Our only objective is to run our opponent down to ZERO Available Options(AO).

Your best moves are usually to Flip Inside Pieces. Preferably, Flipping Inside Pieces Entirely... aka FIPE's. This means that, none of the pieces that you would be flipping are exposed. An example of this is b7 in the image below. If you played b7 below instead, you would be Flipping an Inside Piece Entirely. Make sense? I marked k2 as well because k2 is also a very good move, because whenever you have an opportunity to share a side with an opponent, you should. You don't have to do it immediately. But if the side CAN BE SHARED, then you should share it. So, if your opponent plays a side before you, and you see that the side CAN BE SHARED, just like in the image below, then you should share it. Sometimes you may have to EARN the move there first.



Okay so... here's the 2nd image below. Here is 1 move later. You played a9 here. Again, b7 is still your best move as it is a FIPE(Flipping Inside Pieces Entirely). But your main problem here is how you played the side. By playing a9, you are allowing your opponent to "run you up on the wall" by playing a8 and then "finishing with the sweep" at b7. This stuff is fairly advanced, so... don't worry if you don't understand this stuff just yet. It took my brother several months to understand this stuff. It's just a matter of repetition.



So... after you didn't take the SW side and you didn't share the NE side, after that you were pretty much screwed. These are VERY common mistakes that most players make over and over again. Once you become aware of them it should help you quite a bit. Playing the sides correctly is really the hardest part of this game because it's so tricky and almost nobody gets it right 100% of the time. I hope this helps a little anyway. Let me know if you have any questions.

https://www.itsyourturn.com/pp?gm&g=...&u=0&t=0&gn=97

Edit: Also... some of this stuff is terribly difficult to explain. So... don't feel bad if you don't get it this time and you make the same mistakes several times over again. It took my brother MONTHS to get some of this stuff right. I can already tell you are learning faster than he did.

John in the above, I would never play the j5 now, and its easy to see that the b7 is the best move in both examples.
I could still make the a9 mistake if I was not careful.
Been going back thru the notes you made last year and some of my repetitive mistakes that are embarrassing. I plan on making a better showing next tournament.
Thanks for the notes and all your help. Hopefully I can do better applying them going forward.