Re: [pbmserv] question about the game "Alak"

["Mike Felts" <jmfelts@mindspring.com>]

Thought I sent this to the list, evidently I accidently sent it just to
Martin instead.

Original Message:
That's only 2187 board positions for 7 stone Alak right?  Each stone has
three states (empty, white, black) times itself 7 times, which equals 2187.
That seems small enough to possibly enumerate the positions (pretty easily
done in base 3 numbering actually) and check to see if the board position
has occured before.

Having never played Alak, I have a question.  If a capture causes the board
to look like a previous position, is that capture legal?  In the earlier
example given, if the capture causes board state --O--O- and this board
state has occurred previously, can that capture be performed?

Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Møller Pedersen" <traxplayer@gmail.com>
To: "Richard's PBeM Server Users" <pbmserv-users@gamerz.net>
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 5:24 AM
Subject: Re: [pbmserv] question about the game "Alak"


> On 10/7/05, Scott Huddleston <scotth@ichips.intel.com> wrote:
> > As of two or three years ago, the pbm server recognizes 99.99% of
> > the Chinese ko rule for go.  I added an algorithm that detects
> > any repeated board position that follows a sequence of single
> > stone captures.  This includes triple ko and any ko likely to
> > arise in real play.
> >
> > But this probably doesn't help Alak.  Alak diverges from go in
> > too many ways (no snapback allowed, go suicide survives in alak).
> >
>
> I think that you have to save all earlier board and compare them to
> the current board
> before you can detect a repeat position.
>
> /Martin
>
>
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