Adanac
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Arimaa player #892
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Re: How can I improve
« Reply #1 on: Mar 7th, 2013, 7:15am » |
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on Mar 7th, 2013, 2:57am, gonefisching wrote:
Just keep practising and you’ll improve rapidly 
On move 4g, defending f3 would have been better than attacking the c6 trap.
On 5g, I think it’s always best to place a defender on f2 than e3, because the f2 piece is safer in the long-term (notice that your cat eventually got into difficulty on the e3 square whereas a rabbit on f2 would have been untouchable on 5s due to your threat against the silver camel.
On 7g I would have preferred using at least 1 step to defend the f3 trap (always check to make sure your traps are double- or triple-protected).
Your 8g was a strategic mistake because you pulled his camel towards your horse. Elephants usually have the responsibility of keeping the camel away from the horses.
On 9g attacking the silver horse was a good idea, but putting the cat on f4 exposed it to long-term danger. Keeping it on e3 would have been safer. If on 9g Md2eee Ce4s 9s ce7ssse 10g Mg2wne hg3s. If you wanted to be really cute on 9g, you could have placed you camel on f3 rather than g2, which would have saved you 2 steps on 10g. The camel would have been surprisingly safe on the trap for one turn.
Capturing the horse on 11g was a good move but you should have also used at least one step to move your horse to safety at b6. The bot could have played 11s da7es md6e Hc6e and although you would still have been winning, it’s always dangerous to have pieces frozen between enemy traps like that. Avoid getting your pieces stuck on d6 and e6 unless you can get strong control over both enemy traps.
You could have had threats against both the silver camel and horse on 12g with Hc6w Ec5ne md6e, and established a strong long-term attack in the northwest quadrant. Once you establish a strong grip around c6, the natural follow-up is to charge the a2 rabbit 4 steps forward on 13g to add long-term pressure against your opponent. There would be no immediate goal threats, but it’s very uncomfortable for your opponent when you have strong control over a trap and an advanced rabbit.
Both of you made a tactical oversight on the 13th move. By not protecting the c6 trap with your elephant, OpFor could have played 13s rd8s md6we Hb6ex. Luckily for you, it overlooked that. Again, pushing the camel to e6 is stronger because you want to keep the camel away from your horse by interposing your elephant.
On 16g, your position is getting a bit exposed. Your cat is hanging on f5 and your horse is also vulnerable on b6. Your own rabbits make it awkward to capture pieces in c3. You could play 16g Ec4n Mg3nnn to keep both traps safe but I would worry about leaving the f3 trap so empty and also your position is stretched out. A safer 16g could be 16g Cf5w Dd5w Rb3w Rc3w. This would protect both your cat and horse. Also by clearing out your c3 trap, you would have been able to threaten the d3 cat while holding a camel hostage at b4.
Your 17g & 18g were good tactical moves to take advantage of the exposed camel. Unfortunately, because of all the pieces you lost on earlier moves you were definitely losing the material race after 19 moves. Two dogs are roughly worth 1 camel (usually), so you were effectively down by a horse on 20g.
You did well to swindle the victory at the end but, obviously a stronger opponent would have easily prevented that rabbit from scoring. I think you’ll improve a lot with practice, making sure to always keeping your home traps safe before attacking the enemy traps. And advancing rabbits into your opponent’s territory after you gain strong control over a trap is almost always a great long-term strategy.
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