STAR

Copyright (c) 1983 Craige Schensted

The game is played on a initial empty 5x10x6 hexagonal board.

DROP - On each turn, each player drops a stone into an empty cell. PIE RULE - After the first move, the second player may decide to change sides. STAR - A star is a chain of connected stones of the same color, with at least 3 stones on the cells adjacent to the edge of the board. The points of a star is defined by the number of cells adjacent to the edge filled with its stones minus 2. GOAL - When both players pass, wins the one with more star points.

An example The Black star has value 2 (it occupies 4 cells adjacent to the edge minus 2).  For each White stone dropped at any cell [1], Black looses one potential point. Notice that cell [2] is not relevant, since it is not adjacent to the board edge.

Mark Thompson says the following: This scoring system gives Star considerable depth. Since your score is related to the number of edge cells you occupy, but with two points deducted for each star, you have two competing goals: get territory on the edges, and link your stars together. And you will note that linking your own stars will usually prevent your opponent from linking his, and vice versa, so that careful judgments must be made all over the board. [...] Knowledgeable players have compared Star to Go; it could well be the greatest game invented in the twentieth century. Star was published in GAMES magazine (Sept. 1983), but when I first posted this page it seemed to have been sadly neglected since then.

You can also check Schensted's *Star webpage.