Abalone (board game)
Abalone is a two-player strategy
board game which can be quaintly summarized as "
sumo wrestling with
marbles", as the objective is to push opposing marbles off the edge of the board. The rules can be mastered in a minute or two, and the flow of the game is fast-paced. Abalone tends to draw in new players much more quickly than complicated, slow games such as
chess. Also, pushing the marbles is physically satisfying. The click-click-click as one's marbles push the enemy back is almost musical.
Rules
The board consists of 61 circles arranged in a hexagon five on a side.Each player has 14 marbles which rest in the circles, and are initially arrayed as shown at left.
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Black opens with a broadside move |
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White counters with an inline move |
The player with the black marbles moves first. For each move, a player moves a line of one, two, or three marbles one space, either
inline (parallel to the line of marbles) or
broadside (not parallel to the line of marbles), as illustrated at left.
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Three Black pushes before |
When one player has numerical superiority in a line (three to two, three to one, or two to one) he or she may push the opposing marbles with an inline move. Broadside pushes are not allowed. The winner is the first player to push six opposing marbles off the edges of the board. The diagrams at left illustrate three Black pushes, before and after pushing.
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Black has no available pushes |
The diagram at left illustrates three situations in which it is impossible for Black to push. In the top line Black does not have numerical superiority. In the middle line, Black has four marbles to three, but a maximum of three marbles may be moved each turn, so again no push is possible. In the bottom line Black cannot push because it is forbidden to dislodge one's own marbles.
Move notation
The notation for recording moves gives the letters A-I to the horizontal lines, and the numbers 1-9 to northwest-southeast diagonals.
I O O O O O
H O O O O O O
G + + O O O + +
F + + + + + + + +
E + + + + + + + + +
D + + + + + + + + 9
C + + @ @ @ + + 8
B @ @ @ @ @ @ 7
A @ @ @ @ @ 6
1 2 3 4 5
A popular notation:An inline move can be denoted by the movement of the trailing marble.Broadside moves can be denoted by the initial positions of the two extremities of the row followed by the final position of the first one (thus, with this notation, each broadside move has two notations possible, which could be avoided).
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A midgame position with Black to move |
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1. F5-E5 : Black disrupts two white lines |
Here are some moves from a sample midgame. No marbles have yet been ejected in the first position.
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1... C4-B3* : White ejects a black marble |
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2. C2-B2* : Black ejects a white marble |
Avoiding draws
The dynamics of the basic game may have one serious flaw: it seems a good, conservative player canset up his or her marbles in a defensive wedge, and ward off all attacks indefinitely.An attacker may try to outflank this wedge, or lure it into traps, but such advances areoften more dangerous to the attacker than the defender. Thus, from the starting position, ittakes little skill and no imagination to avoid losing, and nothing in the rules preventsgames from being interminable.
Because it is boring for games to be drawn out indefinitely, serious Abalone players tacitly agree to play aggressively. A player who forms a defensive wedge and makes no attempt to attackis therefore likely to be a novice who might lose anyway. Nevertheless, the possiblity of anycompetent player bringing the game to a standstill, and successfully avoiding losing to even achampionship-calibre player, remains troubling.
There are several possible solutions to this conundrum. First, in tournaments, a judge may penalize a player for playing defensively. This solution is somewhat unsatisfactory, given that a judge may not always be present, and that "defensive play" is a subjective notion.
Second, several variations of the rules of play have been developed for the same board and marbles. None of the variations has the same appealing simplicity of the original.
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Marguerite starting position |
Third, and perhaps best, alternative starting positions have been designed to make the formation of stalemate wedges less likely. Experiments are still underway to find an opening position which neither devolves into a draw, nor gives too great an advantage to the first player. One popular attempt is the
marguerite position, which is displayed on the left in its German version.
Rule variations
Abalone can be played by three persons (or more) using the same board with fewer marbles each in three different colours.
A number of two player variations use a third colour for passive pieces, for example variation
The Pillar which has been examined to some depth by Alex Borello and Nicolas Le Gal.
A few variations use a second layer of marbles, for example variation
Bagdad Thief*
Variations on the official website*
Sprint variation*
Sudden Death: First player to push out a marble wins. [
1]
Strategy tips
* Always try to keep your marbles in a single group. Once you are split, it becomes very hard to defend OR attack. Conversely, be aware for divide and conquer opportunities to weaken your opponent!
* Always think about the shape. Shape and cohesion are everything - if possible try to think of your group of marbles as jelly - able to deflect a pronged attack by sliding around the point of your opponent.
* The most effective 'shape' to hold is a 3×3
rhomboid. This is the most powerful because it offers 3-marble attack/defence in most directions. The way to deal with it is to manipulate your marbles to chop the 'point' of your opponent's rhomboid off. This shape will use 9 marbles - use your others to manuevure the rhomboid around the board, always keeping the shape.
* The most defensive formation is a trapezoid (this generally means the player is on the back foot)
* A useful shape is the 'flower' - rather like the alternative starting positions shown above. One way of making this nigh on unassailable from all directions is by trapping an enemy marble in the centre of the flower - but of course, this reduces the strength of the attack, as only 2 marbles can be brought to bear on a tangent, rather than 3 in any direction if the flower is entirely one colour.
* Never overextend an attack. You will quickly find yourself losing cohesion. Be patient! This holds all game until the last few moves when you are certain you can finish your opponent off. If you find yourself in this position - go for the jugular!
* As you lose marbles near the edge, it makes sense to keep your strategy evolving around occupying the middle.
Gameplay tips
* When you first start playing, this game will not be fast - it could last for an hour or more, while you try to get your head round the sheer number of possibility of moves and counter-moves. A game this long may also give you brainache. A good way to combat this is to agree with your opponent before you start to always try and move as instantaneously as possible after your opponent has. This makes the game very fast, both of you will make mistakes, but you will learn much more quickly!
* If you are four marbles down (or less) do not lose heart! You still have every chance of coming back to win the game. 5 marbles down is much tricker to cope with, and in this player's experience generally leads to defeat. (You may make some headway and knock out a few of your opponent's marbles, but it requires wily play not to let yourself get backed onto the edge and lose that last marble, and therefore the game).
Origins
Abalone was invented in 1987 by Laurent Levi and Michel Lalet. In 1999 a number of top players from the Mind Sport Olympic signed an agreement to use a different starting position (the Belgian daisy) to revitalise the game. This has been used for top tournaments since then, including the on-line World Cup.
Champions
No official world championships have been held, the only international tournament is the
Mind Sports Olympiad.
* Mind Sport Olympic Champion
** Marc Tastet, 1997, France
** Vojtêch Hrabal, 1998, Czech Republic
** Gert Schnider, 1999-2000, Austria
** Thomas Fenner, 2001, Germany
** Jan Stastna, 2002, Czech Republic
** Stephane Nicolet, 2003, France
** Alex Borello, 2004, France
** David M. Pearce, 2005, England
*
AbaloneGames.com - The official site (English/French/German)
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NetAbalone - Download the game module to play on-line
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I-ABALONE - News, on-line tournaments results, forum (English/French)
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AbaloneTheory-Forum - A forum with theory articles, games by correspondence and exercises (English/French/German)
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Forum - A forum about Abalone with exercises to solve (English/French)
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abalone_prog - Yahoo group about Abalone programming
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dmoz.org - Abalone links, many with computer opponents
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My Lovely Abalone - Strongest computer opponent in 2006
