TANBO FAQ (Copyright (c) Mark Steere)

INTRODUCTION
Over the month or so since I first posted the rules to Tanbo, I've
received several questions, challenges, and criticisms on the
decisions I made in inventing the rules of Tanbo.  This document is
based largely on this correspondence.

To get the rules of Tanbo, send eMail to pbmserv@gamerz.net with
the subject line:
    help tanbo.rules

The initial concept in Tanbo was "increasing stones / decreasing
roots".  Given this much, most everything else about the game
followed.  The rules "fell into place", so to speak.

ORIGINAL DESIGN GOALS
    No Draws 
    No Ties
    No First-Move-Advantage  
Every game must produce a winner.  Many people have challenged me
over the years on why it's important to invent games in which draws
and ties are impossible.  Often phrased as "what's the big deal".
The big deal is something akin to Murphy's Law. If you *can* have a
draw, you *will* have a draw.  And the frequency of draw games will
increase as your skill level advances.  Tic-tac-toe is a pretty good
example of this phenomenon.  Perhaps it's just a matter of opinion,
but I think of draw games as undesireable.

I know that in many games, a computer is assigned to moderate the
game and prevent you from repeating a previous board configuration.
And so it eliminates draws from that particular game.  This is 
really slim consolation.  A cycle of moves could be extraordinarily 
long, though not infinite.  Also, depending on the game and the 
situation, it might not be obvious that you are about to repeat a 
board configuration from way back, or that you will be the first, 
ahead of your opponent, to do so.  You just get a beep and an error 
message from your computer/moderator when you unwittingly do it.

In Tanbo, it's impossible to repeat a board configuration. So no
computer/moderator is necessary.

First-move-advantage is another enemy of the game inventor.  First-
move-advantage is where the mere act of moving first in the game
increases your chances of winning the game.  Like draw-frequency,
first-move-advantage will grow with your skill level.  Chess and Go
have a strong first-move-advantage among experts.  Othello has a
strong second-move-advantage.

In some games, you can alleviate first-move-advantage by increasing
the board size.  In other games, it won't make any difference.  It
depends on the game.

NOT A DESIGN GOAL
It was not a design goal to make Tanbo look like plant roots.  This
was just a happy coincidence.  Tanbo is fully an abstract game.

INITIAL CONFIGURATION
Thoroughly interspersing the seeds is a deterrent to first-move-
advantage.  Each root is surrounded by opposing roots, causing a
certain amount of chaos in the gameplay.  That's good. The end of
one battle is the beginning of a neighboring battle, and you see
something like the butterfly effect going on.  This limits how far
you can plan ahead in your strategy.  Again, that's good.  If you
can see all the way to the end of the game, you can solve the game,
and it ceases to be a game.

"IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A GAME TO BE 100% FREE OF FIRST-MOVE-ADVANTAGE?"
I tend to doubt it.  Most games require more than ten but less than,
say, 300 moves to complete the game.   I think that for Tanbo to be
100 percent free of first-move-advantage, it would have to be
infinitely large, and require an infinite number of moves to complete.
Of course then it would be a non-game since you'd never finish.  I
suspect that in its current incarnation, Tanbo can resist first-move-
advantage for many years of advancing skill.

I haven't noticed any sign of first-move-advantage in Tanbo so far,
but I've only been playing for 1-1/2 years so it's too early to say.
For all I know, a second-move-advantage may emerge years from now.

GAME TREES
Most games' game trees would look more like scraggly, ingrown bushes
if you could see them. There are a million different ways to arrive
at any particulal board configuration.  The Tanbo game tree is no
weeping willow to be sure.  But where you go depends, to a very high
degree, on where you've been.  This characteristic limits look-ahead
and deters first-move-advantage in Tanbo.

SPACING BETWEEN SEEDS
I wanted to have an odd number of points between the seeds.  This
prevents local mirroring, something which subtracts from creative
variety.  In Tanbo (two-dimensional version) there are 5 points
between seeds.  The next lower odd number is 3 and this would make
the roots a little cramped.  Since the "turning diameter" of a root
is 3 points, you need a little bit of room for creative root growth.
The next higher odd number, 7 points, puts the seeds too far apart.
It would take too long to engage the enemy roots.

NO MIRRORING SCHEMES ARE POSSIBLE - LOCAL OR GLOBAL
It's impossible to carry out any kind of coherent mirroring scheme
in Tanbo for more than a few moves.  This forces each player to come
up with his own creative strategy.

"THE RULES FOR REMOVING ROOTS ARE TOO COMPLICATED"
In Tanbo, the expanded root kills all the roots it bounds, unless
it commits suicide in the process.  In that case, only the expanded
root is removed.  Not real complicated.  There's a similar rule in
Go, and Go is considered a "minute-to-learn" game. I present the
root-removal rules in a somewhat technical format. It's important to
be specific and thorough in a game manual.  But the concepts
involved are really not that big of a deal.

"WHY ARE THE RULES FOR REMOVING GROUPS OPPOSITE FROM THOSE OF GO?"
In Go, the expanding group can't commit suicide unless it kills an
opposing group in the process (in which case it's no longer a
suicide).  Why can't Tanbo be more like Go in this respect?  Tanbo
can't be like that for the following reason:  If Tanbo's rules
specified that an expanded, bounded root had priority over other
roots bounded during the same turn, the expanded root could be left
on the board, still bounded, at the conclusion of a turn.  This
would not do at all.

"WHY EVEN REMOVE ROOTS?  WHY DON'T YOU JUST SAY WHOEVER RUNS OUT OF
SPACE FIRST LOSES?"
This is a fair question.  And one who's answer is a just matter of
opinion.  I considered this question during the development of the
rules, and again later after I'd been playing for a few months.  The
question is really: Do the root-removal rules add enough to the game
to justify adding them as rules?  I personally think the
root-removal rules are justified.  I thought so at the outset, and I
think so now.

There are two different levels of strategy in Tanbo.  One is low
level fighting and grubbing for space.  The other is a high level
concern that your roots will be safe from aggressive bounding.  Both
sub-strategies are equally important.  You must see the "forest" as
well as the "trees".  Although roots do not actually get bounded
very often, the *threat* of aggressive bounding influences just
about every move you make in the first 3/4 of the game.

Without the root-removal rules, you'd just be left with a space-
grubbing game.  This wouldn't be the worst thing in the world,
but I think it's a deeper game as it is.

"THE ROOTS ARE HARD TO 'SEE'.
I CAN'T DISTINGUISH MY INDIVIDUAL ROOTS."
OK, you got me there.  Beginners usually have some difficulty
"seeing" their roots for the first couple of games.  After playing
for a week or two, you easily distinguish your individual roots
without even trying.

That's the nice thing about playing Tanbo on Richard's PBeM Server
- beginners won't accidentally leave bounded roots on the board.
The computer takes them off for you.
(eMail to pbmserv@gamerz.net with subject line: help).

"TANBO JUST DOESN'T HAVE THE MAJESTY OF CHESS."
More than one Chess enthusiast has impressed this on me during the
past year and a half.  I don't really know how to respond to this
charge, except to say that I don't really care about majesty in a
game.

"WHY USE GO EQUIPMENT?"
Because of the relatively simple gameplay, I needed a really big
board.  The 19x19 board of Go is gigantic compared to, say, the 8x8
board of Checkers.  It also happens to be the perfect size for the
spacing and initial setup I wanted - an amazing coincidence.

An expensive Go set is really something to behold.  It also has a
certain functional beauty.  If you bang against a full volume Go
board, it will probably not budge at all.  If you do bump it hard
enough to move it, the Go stones will not shuffle out
of position.  Rather they will soak up the shock by wobbling, and
then release their energy into the board through friction.

"HOW ABOUT CHANGING THE RULES SO YOU GET TO EXPAND ALL OF YOUR
ROOTS DURING YOUR TURN?"
This would partition the gameplay into a short series of
"super-moves", opening the door to first-move-advantage.

"WHAT DOES 'TANBO' MEAN?"
Tanbo means rice paddy in Japanese.  Go was invented in China as
Wei-Chi around 2000 BC. The Japanese later adopted and popularized
Go, and gave it international significance. Tanbo is not a variant
of Go, but it was inspired by Go and is related to Go.  Hence the
Japanese name.

ABOUT THE INVENTOR
Born in Palo Alto, CA  USA in 1959.  I have a math degree and some
computer programming experience.  I won the American MENSA award,
etc. for my other game, Quadrature.  Quadrature is a good game, but
Tanbo is better as far as I'm concerned.  I have invented some dice
games too.  Yes, I did attempt to read "Winning Ways".  But I don't
have the patience to wade through that.

I don't believe that any game is perfect, or that any game can be
perfect.  But Tanbo comes pretty damn close. In the unlikely event
that you "wring out" Tanbo in your lifetime, you could then advance
to three-dimensional Tanbo on, say, a 7x7x7 board with no changes to
the rules whatsoever.  Computers of the future may enjoy playing
eleven-dimensional Tanbo.