Hello, Steemians! Besides my passion to travel, I have a passion to logic games and my favourite one is Gomoku.
Introduction
This game is really ancient and you probably heard about the rules. The classic gameboard is 15x15 empty intersections.
Players are placing stones, black and white one after another. First player who get "an unbroken row of exactly five stones (not six or more) horizontally, vertically, or diagonally" wins. In other words, it is "Five in row" game.
Tactics
Most of all I like this game bacause of beautiful combinations. Tactical skills have an implortant role in this game.
If you know tactics you can win (though you need experience, opening theory and strategy to become really strong).
Example. White to move. Who is going to win?
It seems very dangerous situation for white. Black attacking by creating f7-g6-i4 unchained three threat. Moreover, moving black i7 create dead fork for white.
Did you guess the winning move for white?
Right! j11! Lets see how this works :-)
W: j11, B: k12
After j11 black have only one defend - k12
W: i12, B: i13
Oh, wait... i12 is a dead fork for black. i13 is forced answer.
W: h13, B: j14? l9?
Black can't block open four and lose the game.
Seems easy?
Contest
I decided to make a contest devoted to this wonderful game.
I'm still a minnow on Steem and so prize for the first right answer is 0.5 SBD.
It's also necessary to explain how you get this answer.
What threats you create and why all possible opposite answers will lose.
Contest lasts for three days 1, 2 and 3 of September. After that I create a post with solution and choose the first answer from comments with shortest way to win. Also the reward will be sent.
Task
White to move.
What is the shortest way to win? Explain your logic.
Thank you for your attention! Follow my blog @ideamaker for more contests.
it seems complicated but what isnt is a follow for folow
First, great puzzle, took me a good minute!
Second, I believe if I put a white piece on F3 then black piece would be forced to go on F4, then I put a white piece on C3 then black piece would be forced to go on D4, then I would put a white piece on D3 leaving both B3 and G3 open to take for the win and the enemy with only one piece. (If this is too confusing I can reword)
Heyo! Actually in your logic you lose instead of win. Here's the diagram after:
White: f3, Black: f4
White: c3, Black: d4
After this every white move is obviously lost. Did I understand your answer right?
You're right, I totally neglected checking for black victory xD
My question is, do you have a specific answer in mind or is this just an open-ended test?
Also what are you using to graph the game? I feel like doing it visually might have let me see that simple mistake
Yes, I have an answer on this task, of course.
However, you know, I'm player of this game for 2 years so, I think, I might have overdone with complexity. This task is tricky. Check out the next contest in my blog - it has more straightforward win. I'm sure you can find it :-)
P.S. These diagrams are created in photoredactor T_T