When teaching Go, a popular mini-game is capture-Go, with the winner being the first to capture an opponent's stone. But these Chess mini-games gave me an idea for an even simpler one.
Starting from an empty board, place your stone so that it's not adjacent to any opponent stone. The first player unable to do so loses. I guess it could be called Avoid Contact.
This is first of all a good way to learn the distinction between 4-connectedness and 8-connectedness., while avoiding the intricacies of captures. But it can also teach players a bit about forming territory, since building a chain 2 steps from the edge creates a safe space for your own stones.
Now that I think about it, this is so obvious that it should already be known. If so, does anyone have a reference for it?
Thinking about it some more, this game has a big flaw. One of the players has a simple winning strategy by mirroring (actually 180 degree rotation) the other player's moves. On an n x n board, the 1st player wins if n is odd (by starting in the middle), and the 2nd player wins if n is even. Changing to a rectangular m x n board, with m+n odd, doesn't help. The 1st player still wins by playing on one of the 2 central points followed by mirroring.
While this flaw prevent Avoid Contact from being a good game in its own right, it still seems to make an excellent introduction to Go. Praised be those students that can discover the mirroring strategy by themselves. And then they will appreciate Go all the more as they learn how to defeat the mirroring strategy there...
The next chance I get to teach someone Go, it will be in this order:
AWESOME!!! YES!!!! It's all about the most simple structures.
There is a flaw in the B+R minigame, which is that perfect play leads to a draw, or rather people playing forever and getting board because they don't yet know the 50-move rule...
Although apt adults will quickly realize the optimal approach, many will still get pieces captured, so someone will win and lose, and they can play again until they realize the optimal approach. Then it's time to move on to the next minigame!
I still haven't figured out if Pawn Wars resolves to a zugzwang situation based on who moves first. And King Opposition took a while for me to grok, even though I knew how to queen a pawn. Interesting to think about all these things, even if the conclusion is predetermined.
Starting from an empty board, place your stone so that it's not adjacent to any opponent stone. The first player unable to do so loses. I guess it could be called Avoid Contact.
This is first of all a good way to learn the distinction between 4-connectedness and 8-connectedness., while avoiding the intricacies of captures. But it can also teach players a bit about forming territory, since building a chain 2 steps from the edge creates a safe space for your own stones.
Now that I think about it, this is so obvious that it should already be known. If so, does anyone have a reference for it?