Wall

A wall is a group of pieces forming a straight line inside the board. Walls are strategically strong because they can serve as edges within the board, allowing edge templates to be played with the walls as support.

A popular way to create a wall is to ladder in the "wrong direction". The example below shows the lower part of a board:

R5 C10 Ve2 Hf2 Hd4 Vc4

While Red could easily connect two the bottom edge by means of her leftmost red piece, instead she ladders to the right, giving the following position:

R5 C10 Ve2 Hf2 Hd4 Vc4  Ve3 He4 Vf3 Hf4 Vg3 Hg4 Vh3 Hh4 Vi3 Hi4

Now Red connects the pieces to the left. The newly created wall can come in handy as play goes on near the top of the board (not shown here).

Note that this illustrates suboptimal play by Blue. Since Red already has a connection to the bottom, Blue should not play the ladder allowing Red to set up a wall.

A wall can contain one-hex holes without affecting its function, as long as the whole wall is a single group. The holes may be empty or occupied by the opponent.

R5 C8 Vb3 Vc3 Vd4 Ve3 Ve4 Vf4 Hf3 Vg3 Vg3