Copyright (c) 2000 Bill Taylor
QUAX is a two player strategy game played on any square board. The author suggests 11x11 (as usual, smaller is more tactical, larger more strategic).
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| A connecting example
The black stones are connected. The red stones cannot be connected directly. |
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| Race
to connections
If it's Black turn he wins by playing at cell [1]. If it's Red he must play at [1] and have a powerful threat to win at cell a10, where Black must drop a stone to continue his attack. |
Quax is already available on Richard Rognlie's email server.
Some words from the author:
The main diagonal lines have a similar role to the critical lines in TwixT.
One tactic has become clear:
| A Tesuji Black dropped the marked stone. There's nothing Red can do about it. Black is sure to be able to slide down one side or other, and the 2-chain prevents any double-cut moves. |
Play between the author & page-owner suggests a lot of early moves are best played on the "same-coloured" cells
I'm surprised no-one else seems to have thought of Quax before! I guess they just didn't think of a "diagonal crossing" as being a move; even though it is identical to play on the Archimedean 8/4/4 board:
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Connection games seem to be getting names ending with X, (Hex, TwixT), we thought that "Quadrangular Hex" could be usefully shortened to "Quax", which is also the noise made by the winner as he puts in the killing move! :-)
| A small puzzle
(from Bill Taylor) solution Black started. Who wins? |
| A sample game
d3 f5, f8 h8, g6 f7, g3 f3, f2 e2, e3 e2f3, f4 g4, f4g3 h3, g5 f5g4, h4 g4h3, g7 e8, Black resigns check the cells coordinates by pointing the mouse over them! |
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d3 e6, c6 c8, h6 h8, f7 f9, e9 e8, d8 g9, c7 e10, c9 d9, c9d8 c4, d5 Red resigns |
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c3 e5, f3 h3, g5 i6, h4 i4, i9 g7, f8 g9, g8 h8, h7 i7 Black resigns |
| Solution Black wins! Red best move is at [1]. There is no way to stop the Black chain (move 5 is a White connection between [1] and [3]). |
