| An example
Black will win next turn after the double horizontal and vertical threat. White was not able to contain the consecutive attacks of Black, letting him build an inner group of black stones until Black win was inevitable. |
Board Game Geek's entry for Connect6
says the game is from 2003 by Professor I-Chen Wu. I don't
doubt that he designed the game as stated, and by his efforts made the game
quite popular.
But the fact is, Connect6 is older than 2003.I played the game several times, with Bill Taylor, in 2002 (and probably 2001). We called it "1222 6-in-a-Row" and used a boundless board. Here are the two only surviving complete matches I could find (not easy to still keep emails from 23 years ago...)
1222 6-in-a-Row (1-2) Game 4 Joao - Bill
===============
5| . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4| . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3| . . . . . . . . X . . . .
2| . . . . . . . O O . . . .
1| . . . X O O X X O . X . .
0| . . . O X X O O O X . . .
-1| . . X . X O X X O O . . .
-2| . . . O X O . O X X . . .
-3| . . . . . X X O X x . . .
-4| . . . X O O O . O X x . .
-5| . . . X O O O O . X . . .
-6| . . . . . . . O X . . . .
-7| . . . . . O . X X . . . .
-8| . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-9| . . . . . . . . . . . . .
--------------------------
-5-4-3-2-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. 0,0 1,0 0,1
2. 1,-1 2,-1 0,-1 -1,1
3. -1,0 2,1 2,-2 -2,0
4. -3,-1 -2,1 3,-1 2,0
5. 1,1 5,1 0,-2 3,1
6. 4,-2 -1,-1 2,2 0,-4
7. -1,-2 4,0 3,0 3,2
8. 3,-3 3,3 0,-5 -1,-5
9. 0,-3 1,-3 1,-5 2,-5
10 -2,-5 4,-5 2,-3 2,-6
11 2,-7 3,-7 4,-1 1,-4
12 3,-6 3,-2 3,-4 -1,-4
13 -2,-4 4,-4 -2,-2 0,-7
14 4,-3 5,-4 White resigns
1222 6-in-a-Row (2-2) Game 5 Bill - Joao
===============
5| . . . . . . . . . . .
4| . . . . . . . O . . .
3| . O . . O O X O . . .
2| . . X x x X x . . . .
1| . . O X X X X . O . .
0| . . . X X X O . . . .
-1| . . O x O X O . . . .
-2| . . O . . O O . . . .
-3| . . . . . . . . . . .
-4| . . . . . . . . . . .
-----------------------
-5-4-3-2-1 0 1 2 3 4 5
1. 0,0 1,0 1,-1
2. 1,2 0,2 -1,-1 -1,3
3. 0,1 0,-1 0,-2 0,3
4. -2,1 -1,1 -3,1 3,1
5. -2,0 1,3 -3,-1 2,4
6. -1,0 -3,2 1,-2 -4,3
7. -2,-1 1,2 -3,-2 2,3
8. -2,2 -1,2 Black wins next
These matches were suggested, most probably my Bill, but
the game itself was not a design born from our conversations. For us, back then,
1222 6-in-a-Row was just a nice gaming practice.
Let's go back to this 1993
post from rec.games.abstract
Bill Taylor Oct 5, 1993, 3:56:58AM
Most board games have a noticeable advantage to the first player. Just recently
I mentioned a method of "equalizing the advantage" between the players, (or
rather removing the advantage), that I had posted about some time earlier.
Karl Heuer replied...
>My own favorite "equalization" technique is
>to have the first player make one move and thereafter each player gets two
>moves. This doesn't apply to all board games, but it seems to work well with
>Hex, simplified Go-Moku, and even Chess (with appropriate check-restrictions).
Yes, this is a fun system. This is the simplest of the multi-move "transformers"
that myself and Michael Chisnall posted about, in some newsgroup or other, a
fair while ago. There are a great many other "transformers", that can apply to
almost any board game, such as the "misere" transformer, the "kriegspiel"
transformer, and so on.
And, Karl Heuer, in the day after:
>The trouble with the 1-2-2-2-2-... multimove transformer, is that
>(ii) it doesn't necessarily remove the first-move advantage, though it usually
> reduces it a lot, (though may somewhat *reverse* it).
I thought it made a pretty good equalizer in practice; seems to me that the
resulting game will favor the second player about as often as the first.
Consider 1-2-2-... multimove Hex on a size-n board. Who wins under perfect
play? (I once conjectured that it was player 1 for odd n and player 2 for
even n, but this turned out to be wrong.)
Simplified go-moku (symmetric rules; no restrictions on forks or overruns;
infinite board; winning position is n stones in a row) is a first-player win
for n=5, and a draw for n=7 (I don't think n=6 has been solved yet). What
is known about 1-2-2-... multimove go-moku for various values of n?
I couldn't find the earlier Taylor/Chisnall post mentioned
in the text.
Probably the game now known as Connect6 is even older than these threads. But,
with this evidence, the BGG entry should include Taylor and Chisnall (c.1993) as
game designers of Connect6.
ยง
Connect6, as it is, seems quite balanced. There are 3000 matches played at IgGameCenter with almost equal rate for first and second player wins. However Connect6 has too much decisiveness. In AbstractPlay the median match length is nine turns (!). A good game should provide opportunity for some drama, even moku games.
One way Bill and me tried to balance games was using a linear restriction: both stones dropped in the same turn cannot be in the same row, line or diagonal. This restricts attacks, and favors a more strategic approach. Let's called it Restricted Connect6. We didn't experiment this particular variant, according to the archives of our games, but this restriction is so flexible that it is even possible to play Restricted Progressive Gomoku (proposed and played by us at October 2004), which would be impossible with the regular rules.
Here's an example:
PROGRESSIVE GOMOKU (line-restricted) Billy starts.
==================
Restriction: No two stones in a move may be in the same line.
f g h i j k l m n o p q
. . . . . . . . . . . . 47
. . . . . . . . . x . . 48
. . . . . . . o . . . . 49
. . . . . O x . . o . . 50
. . . x . x o x . o . . 51
. . . . x x o o x O . . 52
. . . . . . . x o o o x 53
. . . . x x . . o x . . 54
. . . . . o . o x . . . 55
. . . . . . x x . . . . 56
. . . . . . . . . . . . 57
. . . . . . . . . . . . 58
1. m53
2. m52 o53
3. k51 n52 o54
4. l52 m55 n53 o51
5. m51 j52 k54 n55 l56
6. m49 o50 l51 p53 n54 k55
7. o48 l50 i51 k52 q53 j54 m56
8. k50 o52
and wins next! (Black cannot place j49 and o49 in the same turn)