Openings on 13 x 13 - Revision history

Selinger: Added category

2020-12-28T21:23:46Z

Added category

Selinger: Grammar and style.

2020-09-24T03:33:05Z

Grammar and style.

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Scrampy: /* Fourth, fifth move... */

2015-10-17T19:21:56Z

‎Fourth, fifth move...

Scrampy: /* The move A3 */

2015-10-17T19:17:44Z

‎The move A3

Scrampy: /* The move A3 */

2015-10-17T19:13:50Z

‎The move A3

Scrampy: /* The move A3 */

2015-10-17T18:51:38Z

‎The move A3

Scrampy: /* The second move */

2015-10-13T20:51:08Z

‎The second move

Pworth: /* The second move */

2015-08-31T09:52:48Z

‎The second move

Scrampy: /* Diagrams for the second move */

2015-08-29T17:45:23Z

‎Diagrams for the second move

127.6.128.1: /* The first move */

2015-08-24T01:53:15Z

‎The first move

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:23, 28 December 2020
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	This is where the tough part comes... to actually play Hex :-) One thing important in early games seems to be to cover ground placing far apart from both your own and your opponent's stones rather than building small chains. Another common strategy seems to be to build walls in the same direction as your edge (see figure). These build in both directions and can be seen as a half-move in both directions. It also hinders the opponent a little to get around from both sides. These walls can extend quite long, I've seen five or six in a row.		This is where the tough part comes... to actually play Hex :-) One thing important in early games seems to be to cover ground placing far apart from both your own and your opponent's stones rather than building small chains. Another common strategy seems to be to build walls in the same direction as your edge (see figure). These build in both directions and can be seen as a half-move in both directions. It also hinders the opponent a little to get around from both sides. These walls can extend quite long, I've seen five or six in a row.
		+
		+	[[category: Opening]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:21, 17 October 2015
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	===Fourth, fifth move...===		===Fourth, fifth move...===

−	This is where the tough part comes... to actually play Hex :-) One thing important in early games seems to be to cover ground placing far apart from both your own and your opponent's stones rather than building small chains. Another common strategy seems to be to build walls in the same direction as your edge (see figure). These builds in both directions and can be seen as a half-move in both direction. It also hinders the opponent a little to get around from both sides. These walls can extend quite long, I've seen five or six in a row~~. Notice that in the example below, black is connected to the top edge through one of the templates. Thus if blacks last move was '''E5''', this is probably a better idea than lets say '''H3'''~~.	+	This is where the tough part comes... to actually play Hex :-) One thing important in early games seems to be to cover ground placing far apart from both your own and your opponent's stones rather than building small chains. Another common strategy seems to be to build walls in the same direction as your edge (see figure). These builds in both directions and can be seen as a half-move in both direction. It also hinders the opponent a little to get around from both sides. These walls can extend quite long, I've seen five or six in a row.

@@ Line 68: / Line 68: @@
 <center>[[Image:4o-flipped.jpg|frame|Template 4o]]</center>
 | width="49%" |
-<center>[[Image:5s.png|frame|Template 5s]]</center>
+<center>[[Image:5s-flipped.jpg|frame|Template 5s]]</center>
 |}

@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 {| width="75%"
 | width="51%" height="157" |
-<center>[[Image:4o.png|frame|Template 4o]]</center>
+<center>[[Image:4o-flipped.jpg|frame|Template 4o]]</center>
 | width="49%" |
 <center>[[Image:5s.png|frame|Template 5s]]</center>
 |}
-The '''A3''' stone is the the one on the left. (To fit them into the above board, you need to flip the template images across the horizontal axis.) The pattern probably generalizes to bigger dimensions as well but I haven't checked this. The point being that it can be used quite effectively to "jump up" when having a ladder on third row.
+The '''A3''' stone is the the one on the left.  The pattern probably generalizes to bigger dimensions as well but I haven't checked this. The point being that it can be used quite effectively to "jump up" when having a ladder on third row.
 So how do you respond if you find yourself playing against '''A3'''? The following table shows the nine most common answers sorted by their rate of winning the game in the end. Ideas what to play and not to play as third move are collected in the third and fourth column. These are sorted in win percent from left to right (and in case of bad response, from worse to less worse). Note that the most common response which is '''G7''' (the middle square) is rather far down the list. Good responses typically lies in the opposite acute corner along the diagonal.

@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 |}
-The '''A3''' stone is the the one to the right. (To fit them in in the above board you need to flip them.) The pattern probably generalizes to bigger dimensions as well but I haven't checked this. The point being that it can be used quite effectively to "jump up" when having a ladder on third row.
+The '''A3''' stone is the the one on the left. (To fit them into the above board, you need to flip the template images across the horizontal axis.) The pattern probably generalizes to bigger dimensions as well but I haven't checked this. The point being that it can be used quite effectively to "jump up" when having a ladder on third row.
 So how do you respond if you find yourself playing against '''A3'''? The following table shows the nine most common answers sorted by their rate of winning the game in the end. Ideas what to play and not to play as third move are collected in the third and fourth column. These are sorted in win percent from left to right (and in case of bad response, from worse to less worse). Note that the most common response which is '''G7''' (the middle square) is rather far down the list. Good responses typically lies in the opposite acute corner along the diagonal.

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 =='''The second move'''==
-After the swap phase is finished, it's time to make the first really important move. We now assume you connecting from left to right. Typically your opponent has a stone in either '''A2''', '''A3''' or '''B2'''.
+After the swap phase is finished, it's time to make the first really important move. We now assume you connecting from left to right. Typically your opponent has a stone in either '''A2''', '''A3''' or '''B2''' (marked as '''1''' in the diagram below).
-Most now play the middle hex, '''G7'''. Statistically this seems to be a bad move, as more than half of the games are lost after this move. No matter where the first stone is placed, the best responses to '''G7''' seems to be '''K10''' or '''J9''' which usually end up with a win. However if your opponent responds with a move like '''H7''', '''F7''' or '''I6''' you are quite well off with your middle stone.
+Most now play the middle hex, '''G7''' (marked as '''2''' in the diagram below). Statistically this seems to be a bad move, as more than half of the games are lost after this move. No matter where the first stone is placed, the best responses to '''G7''' seems to be '''K10''' or '''J9''' (marked as '''3''' in the diagram below) which usually end up with a win. However if your opponent responds with a move like '''H7''', '''F7''' or '''I6''' (marked as * in the diagram below) you are quite well off with your middle stone.
 It should be stressed though that many strong players play '''G7''' and do well. Statistically it doesn't seem so but it's very hard to tell with statistics.

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 =='''The second move'''==
-After the swap phase is finished it's time to really make the first important move. We now assume you connecting from left to right. Typically your opponent has a stone in either '''A2''', '''A3''' or '''B2'''. Most now play the middle square, '''G7'''. Statistically this seems to be a bad move, more than half of the games is lost on this road. No matter where the first stone is placed, the best responses to '''G7''' seems to be '''K10''' or '''J9''' which usually ends up with a win. However if your opponent respond with a move like '''H7''', '''F7''' or '''I6''' you are quite well off with your middle stone.
+After the swap phase is finished, it's time to make the first really important move. We now assume you connecting from left to right. Typically your opponent has a stone in either '''A2''', '''A3''' or '''B2'''.
 It should be stressed though that many strong players play '''G7''' and do well. Statistically it doesn't seem so but it's very hard to tell with statistics.
@@ Line 32: / Line 34: @@
 |}
-In other words, this stone is connected downwards with a strong connection. It's quite optimally placed, further down would be too acentric and further up would be too far from the edge thus not connected. In another way of seeing it, '''J9''' for the vertical player lies pretty much in the center of the right half triangle of the board. It can be used as a ladder escape from the left and is dangerous upwards.
+In other words, this stone is connected downwards with a strong connection. It's quite optimally placed, further down would be too far from the centre and further up would be too far from the edge thus not connected. In another way of seeing it, '''J9''' for the vertical player lies pretty much in the center of the right half triangle of the board. It can be used as a ladder escape from the left and is dangerous upwards.
 Another idea as second move is to block the opponent's first stone by playing in the top acute corner (assuming he played there). This should be done in a similar manner as above. A template should exactly match into the space right of the opponent's stone. If it is at '''A3''', the typical block move should be '''D6''', as shown in the diagram below.

@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 In other words, this stone is connected downwards with a strong connection. It's quite optimally placed, further down would be too acentric and further up would be too far from the edge thus not connected. In another way of seeing it, '''J9''' for the vertical player lies pretty much in the center of the right half triangle of the board. It can be used as a ladder escape from the left and is dangerous upwards.
-Another idea as second move is to block the opponent's first stone by playing in the top acute corner (assuming he played there). This should be done in a similar manner as above. A template should exactly match into the space right of the opponent's stone. If it is at '''A3''', the typical block move should be '''D6''', see figure. (If it is at '''A2''' or '''B2''', the block would go at '''D5''' or '''E6'''.) A warning should be made. Do not use the usual third row template in this purpose as this is too weak a threat. For example the response '''C4''' of '''B2''' usually ends up bad. If a block in this manner is a good idea or not is up to discussion, it seems it's better than playing in the center but not quite as strong as playing '''I10''' or '''J11'''.
+Another idea as second move is to block the opponent's first stone by playing in the top acute corner (assuming he played there). This should be done in a similar manner as above. A template should exactly match into the space right of the opponent's stone. If it is at '''A3''', the typical block move should be '''D6''', as shown in the diagram below.
-<center>[[Image:SameSide.gif]]</center>
+<hexboard size="13x13"
 ===The move A3===

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 The first move should, because of the swap rule, not be too good nor too bad. It now happens that most hexes on the board are too good to start with so the number of good first moves are quite limited. The following diagram shows the number of wins in percent. The first stone to be placed is black. Since the board looks the same rotated 180° it only consider half the board. The hexes which lack numbers are very seldom played but not necessarily bad moves. (Although a hex somewhere near the center is definitely a bad move.) Typically a good start move has a number around 50. If it is higher we would swap it and if less we would not. The most ''common'' moves played are '''A3''', '''B2''' and '''A2''', in that order, all in the acute corner of the board. Other moves to consider is '''C2''', '''D2''', '''E2''', '''A11''', '''A12''' and other moves along the '''A''' column.
-(See the discussion on the LittleGolem forums [[http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=50&topic=554|Hex 13x13 Openings]] for more current statistics)
+(See the discussion on the LittleGolem forums [[http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=50&topic=554 |Hex 13x13 Openings]] for more current statistics)
 As a general principle one can say it's not too bad to swap all moves but '''A1''', '''B1''', ... , '''L1'''. However if '''A3''', '''B2''', '''A2''' etc. is winning or not has not been proved and it's much of personal preference whether to swap or not. The strength of having a stone on for example '''A2''' is of course it's function as a ladder escape. '''A2''' and '''B2''' and other stones on second row can be used as second and third row ladder escapes and '''A3''' can be used as second row ladder escape and will ''help'' getting down third and fourth rows as well. Personally, I don't swap '''A3''' and '''B2''' as much as I used to. It seems getting the strategically important positions as quick as possible is more important than having the first stone.