Arimaa

Arimaa is a strategic board game for two players, developed by Omar Syed, an Indian-American computer scientist specializing in artificial intelligence. Syed was inspired by Garry Kasparov's United Civil Front defeat against the chess computer Deep Blue. He wanted to develop a new game that is very difficult to master computer, but rules should have, which are simple enough that his four year old son Aamir can understand them. The name Arimaa is a ananym Aamir preceded by a

Published in 2002, Syed the Arimaa Rules and praised by 2020 a prize of $ 10,000 from the first computer program that can beat a human top player in a tournament with six or more games. David Fotland presented in the spring of 2004, the hitherto strongest Arimaa program, which was however beaten by Syed himself in a tournament with 8:0 devastating. To date, the strongest available computer program by the people was clearly beaten in repeated annual competition. Syed has for the Arimaa rules applied for a patent and can protect the name Arimaa. The game has won several awards, including "Best Abstract Strategy Game " by GAMES magazine 2011 and " Strategy Game of the Year" by Creative Child magazine in 2010.

Regulate

Game material

Arimaa is played on a chessboard usual size, but on the four fields (c3, f3, c6, and f6) are marked as " traps". The two players, gold and silver, have 16 figures from 6 types of figures (from strongest to weakest figure type ): 1 elephant, 1 camel, 2 horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats and 8 rabbits. These figures can also be chessmen ( 1 king, 1 queen, 2 towers, 2 runners, 2 knights and 8 farmers ) are represented, with gold and silver white black is played.

Aim of the game

The aim of the game is to move a private rabbit on the opposite side. The player wins gold, then, by pulling a rabbit to the eighth row, whereas the silver player has to move a rabbit on the front row. But since this is difficult to achieve when the board is full of action figures, a further objective is to capture opponent's pieces to take by being pushed or pulled into the traps.

Beginning

The game begins with an empty board. Gold placed his 16 pieces in any order on the first two rows. Then puts his silver 16 figures also anywhere on the fields of the seventh and eighth series.

Rules of movement and game course

After all the game pieces have been placed, gold starts the game. It takes a single turn, each train can consist of one to four steps.

Each step moves its own character to an adjacent field to the right, left, above or below their current position. An exception are the rabbits can not pull backwards. The steps of a train can be run either from the same figure or be arbitrarily divided on several figures. At the end of a train must have taken place on the board a change in position, so you can not have a figure, a field in front and pull back again, so the train would be virtually suspended. Also, a train can not bring about the same position for the third time in the same game. This rule prevents the phone similar to the Superko rule in the game of Go and differs from the game of chess, where a three-time position leads to repetition draw. These rules (and the other ) make Arimaa to a game that never ends in a draw.

A player can use two steps of a train to drive an opponent's piece with an adjacent stronger own figure. For example, selling an opponent or an opponent's rabbit cat has its own dog, but no dog, no horse, no camel and an elephant. The stronger character can pull or push the adjacent weaker figure. As you drag, the stronger character moves into an adjacent empty field and the field from which it was drawn, is occupied with the weaker figure. The silver elephant on d5, for example, draw on d4 (or e5 c5 or ) and pull the golden horse from d6 to d5. When pushing on the other hand, the weaker figure is pushed on an adjacent empty field and the own figure occupied the space on which the weaker figure just stood still. The golden elephant on d3 can push the silver rabbit from d2 to e2 and then occupy themselves d2.

My characters can not be expelled. Also, can not simultaneously pull and push a piece. The golden elephant on d3 can not push both the silver rabbit from d2 to e2 and pull the silver rabbit from c3 to d3. An elephant itself can never be distributed, since there is no more powerful figures.

A figure that is adjacent to a stronger opponent's piece is captured, unless they also borders on a separate figure. Arrested figures can not move, but they can even hold more weaker figures. The silver rabbit on a7 is held, but at d2 can move, as it is adjacent to another silver figure. The golden rabbit on b7 is also recorded, the golden cat on c1 is not. An elephant can not be detained again, since he is the strongest character. However, it can be so blocked that it is bounded by the opponent's pieces so that he can not drive.

A character who enters a trap, captured and removed from the board, unless a figure of the same party is adjacent to the trap. If silver is the train, the golden horse can be captured by d6 by the elephant of d5 it pushes on c6. A figure on a case is also taken prisoner when all adjacent pieces of the same party are moved away. So if the silver rabbit on c4 and the silver horse of c2 are moved, either voluntarily or by being sold, the silver rabbit is caught on c3.

A figure can also be moved voluntarily to a case, even if it is thereby captured. The second step in drawing is then yet completed, even if the pulling figure is captured by a trap at the first step. For example, the silver horse, the silver rabbit from f4 g4 after pull, then f2 by f3. Although it is thus captured, it can still pull the golden rabbit of f1 by f2.

In the position shown gold in 3 steps could win: The dog on a6 can push the rabbit from a7 to a8. If the dog is then located on a7, the rabbit is no longer held on b7, allowing it to pull on b8 to win the game.

Alternative game ends

There are other ways in which the game can end except that a rabbit reaches the destination. But these are very rare:

  • When a player captures all 8 rabbits of his opponent, he wins even if he loses his last rabbit in the same train. (Originally there was a draw, when all 16 rabbits were captured, but on 1 July 2008 Syed changed the rules to prevent the possibility of a tie. )
  • If the player who is on the train, can not make a legal train, as all own pieces are either detained or are blocked, or because all possible moves are illegal because of a three-time position repetition, so that player loses.

The game goes on, however, when an opponent's rabbit is only available during a train on a target box, at the end of the train but no more.

Tactics and Strategy

Fritz Juhnke (twice Arimaa World Champion ), the book ' Beginning Arimaa ' (English) written, which is a very good introduction to the tactics and strategies that have been discovered until 2009.

Patent and Trademark

Omar Syed has the rules of Arimaa logged on 3 October 2003 for a patent for it U.S. Patent No. 6,981,700 was issued on 3 January 2006. Syed Omar is also the owner of the brand name " Arimaa ".

Syed has made it clear that he does not intend to limit the non-commercial use. To this end, he has a license called "The Arimaa Public License " published " to make Arimaa as far as possible a common free game while protecting its commercial use " with the declared intention. The license covers the use of the patent and the brand name.

Others

Omar Syed offers his game also discounted for purchase against the digital currency Bitcoin.

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