[Guest]

First, I've mastered Tic tac toe (but you always have to move first)

Then, I came up with an unbeatable strategy for connect 4 (but you have to move 2nd)

I'm sure all of you know the unbeatable tic tac toe strategy (despite it not being a board game) and yes, I've actually developed an unbeatable connect 4 strategy, but what if it goes onto a larger scale. Some more sophisticated games such as chess, Stratego (of which I am awesome at) and other games that don't depend on luck at all (Risk may be strategy, but there's also luck involved, so that takes it out of this genre). Could say you go first in a chess game, if you completely follow a perfect strategy, could you actually be unbeatable? Could we even develop a perfect strategy for such sophisticated games. But then once was held as a game for the brain would simply be an act of memorization. Is it worth finding out, or will we just get board with it (pun intended).

Your thoughts |

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V To where the arrow is pointing

[Aaryan]

No, at least for chess. According to computers, black has a draw with impeccable play.

And what are the tic tac toe and connect 4 strategies?

[Guest]

Tic tac toe- Always start first. When you do. put your first piece on the corner. You'll figure out the rest.

Connect 4-Errr... that one is really hard to explain.

It just seems like Board games take on a general pattern.

Btw, I'm sending out my logic puzzles and board game ideas out to a toy tester who'll hopefully get me in the system. Be on the lookout for some awesome logic puzzles and board games

[Guest]

Not necessarily board games as much as thinking games that don't limit you to luck (by luck I don't mean the opponent's lack of knowledge of the game) such as Pearls Before Swine (not the comic strip, not the bible passage, but the one with the guy with a really annoying laugh). Unless you are lucky or go first, you'll never win.

[Guest]

You need to rethink your tic-tac-toe strategy. It doesn't work. My response to your corner move would be to take the center square. From this strategic position, I can block any strategy. In the seventies, I wrote a program to play tic-tac-toe and it never lost against any challenger, though it could be tied with careful play. The first play with the most winning combinations is the center square and even this can be stopped with proper play.

[Guest]

right tic tac toe is always a draw with careful play.

 | |

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 |X|

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 | |

x takes center. if O takes a side, x will win, thusly...

O| |

------

 |X|O

------

 | |X


O| |

------

 |X|O

------

X| |X


O needs to play in a corner.

 | |

------

 |X| 

------

 | |O

then x plays on the oppisite coner.

X| |

------

 |X| 

------

 | |O

again, if O plays on a side, x wins.

X| |

------

 |X| 

------

X|O|O


so O plays in a corner.


X| |

------

 |X| 

------

O|X|O


X|O|

------

 |X|X

------

O|X|O


X|O|X

------

O|X|X 

------

O|X|O


the other stategy is for x to play in the corner.


X| |

------

 | | 

------

 | |


O must play either in the center or the oppsite corner. the oppisite corner develops like above, with x taking the center.

X| |

------

 |O| 

------

 | |


then X take the oppisite corner.


X| |

------

 |O| 

------

 | |X


X| |

------

 |O| 

------

 | |X


now if O takes one of the other corners, X wins.

X| |X

------

 |O| 

------

O| |X


but if O takes a side, its draw.

X|X|

------

 |O| 

------

 |O|X


X|X|O

------

 |O| 

------

X|O|X


X|X|O

------

O|O|X 

------

X|O|X

[Quag]

yup tic tac toe can only be won if the opponent makes a mistake.

as for chess ask the programmers of big blue what they think

[Molly Mae]

yup tic tac toe can only be won if the opponent makes a mistake.

as for chess ask the programmers of big blue what they think

IBM = Deep Blue.

Anyway, there isn't one end-all game for white in chess. For any given starting opening, there are many positions black could take to keep his draw. It's really more like rock-paper-scissors. While a position may be strong, there is almost always something it's weak against. Chess isn't just about location (position on the board), either. It's about strengths and weaknesses. The center may be strong, but any open file makes a penetrating rook more powerful, even when it's not in the centre. If white could open the game with forcing moves (checks, captures, promotions, or threats to do these things), it might be a different story. Otherwise, there's too much time for black to change the game.

Even more entertaining would be trying to develop such a strategy in Hexagonal Chess, 3D Chess, or Go.

Of all of these, Go has the simplest rules and fewest dynamics and would be easiest to approximate. But don't think that you'll ever find a "perfect" winning strategy.

[unreality]

I think AI researchers have been cracking at Go for a while now, still to no avail

[Molly Mae]

I think AI researchers have been cracking at Go for a while now, still to no avail

And they never really will. With a 19x19, there will always be counterplay. Any game with reasonable counterplay cannot be so strictly predicted.

[unreality]

And they never really will. With a 19x19, there will always be counterplay. Any game with reasonable counterplay cannot be so strictly predicted.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic if I were you. There's nothing magical in a human's ability to play a board game. Any strategy we can do, whether conscious or subconscious, a computer can [in theory!] imitate (and probably do better) either by learning or its own devise. There may be no written-in-stone ideal strategy as related to the OP, but there's definitely the potential for a computer to become extremely good (better than you or i) at the game with the right kind of adaptive, flexible programming. It just hasn't happened yet as far as I know (but I haven't followed up on that for a while)

[Molly Mae]

I wouldn't be so pessimistic if I were you. There's nothing magical in a human's ability to play a board game. Any strategy we can do, whether conscious or subconscious, a computer can [in theory!] imitate (and probably do better) either by learning or its own devise. There may be no written-in-stone ideal strategy as related to the OP, but there's definitely the potential for a computer to become extremely good (better than you or i) at the game with the right kind of adaptive, flexible programming. It just hasn't happened yet as far as I know (but I haven't followed up on that for a while)

Right, I'm aware. Deep Blue can still beat 99% of chess players. My whole argument is that the game is dynamic. A computer can learn a dynamic game. A computer can be better at a dynamic game than any human. But for a perfect play line that it could play to win every time? It won't happen. There will never be one line that always wins, especially if an opponent knows the line and can play ahead of it.