Great board strategy game: ABALONE

[Skybird]

"I think only one move ahead - but a good
one!"

Emanuel Lasker, World Chess Champion

1894-1921, when asked how 'deep' he thinks

Simple in rules, elegant in design, complex in strategy - that's what I call a great game: ABALONE. I have mentioned it before, some years ago. I am not playing it often and thus I rate myself as a beginner, and it's just that I am a chess player in the main - you understand. But Abalone is my second choice if wanting a change from Caissa's routine, even before Backgammon which Abalone has pushed back to third place in my list of preferences. And although it may sound odd - the game, the board satisfies an inner sense for visual beauty in me.

If you don't know it, you can find an explanation of Abalone at wikipedia - you will be surprised how easy yet elegant the rules are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalone_(board_game)

And now the best part of this post:

I now found a computer program for it, which is said to be one of the strongest for Abalone there is. In fact it is the toughest I have played against so far, and I know two freeware and one payware programs. But my assessement does not mean much, since I am really a beginner.

The name of the program is Aba-Pro, and it is winner of the 8th ICGA Computer Olympiad 2003. It was developed as part of a diploma thesis at the university of Graz, Austria.

AND IT IS FREE!

http://www.ist.tugraz.at/staff/aichh...ch/rp/abalone/



Download link, articles on the matter, and player's tributes and comments to be found on that site, or go the easy way here:

ABA-PRO 4.8

Get it. If you like good quality board strategy games like Chess, Othello, Backgammon, Checkers and the like, ABALONE is for you. I played two matches with the software, and it functions both with pushing Sumitos and parallel moves. Many webengines there are do not allow the latter.

The basic setup position in the software is Belgian Daisies, avoiding the problem with the original default positions allowing eternal defense. Belgian Daisies seems to have become pretty much an international standard at tournaments.

Highly recommended!

A publication with some theory behind the program ( "Playing makes fun. Algorithms make fun. Playing with algorithms is fun squared." )

An article about the ICGA tournament

Some statements of top players

"I played against the program quite a few
times and it is really strong. I was not able
to beat it in lightning games (around 5 sec-
onds per move), mostly because it defends
weaker positions extremely well. Tactically
it can look ahead further than me but there
are still some shortcomings in its strategy -
to my opinion it should pay more attention
to the compactness of the marbles, and it
under-estimates the importance of the center
a little. Anyway, it is much stronger than
all other programs I played against. With
its help, Abalone theory will improve much
faster than today."

Gert Schnider, three times World Champion
of Abalone