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Boo
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horse hostage
« on: Mar 26th, 2015, 7:23am » |
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Quote:2015-03-26 08:01:22 browni3141 chessandgo didn't make many disagreeable claims in the book.
2015-03-26 08:01:37 browni3141 There were only a few minor things I disagreed with last time, IIRC.
2015-03-26 08:02:23 browni3141 I don't really like the section on camel holding horse hostages anymore. |
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Browni, could you please be more specific about what is wrong with those hostages?
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browni3141
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Re: horse hostage
« Reply #1 on: Mar 26th, 2015, 1:53pm » |
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Excerpt from Arimaa Strategies and Tactics, page 36:
Silver to play.
This is similar; but here, Silver’s elephant moving to g4 threatens direct capture on f3 on top of the rest! Also, the g2 horse is well placed to take hold of f2 and steal control of the f3 trap as soon as the caMel is removed from g3. This is a reason to prefer hostaging a horse on h3, with the help of an h4 Horse, rather than on g2. This said, having an additional gold piece on h3 would turn this bad hostage pattern into a good one.
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I disagree that hostages held on h3 tend to be superior than hostages held on g2. I would argue the opposite, since h3 hostages block gold's forward development on the h-file, and they are generally easier to break.
In the diagram position after elephant g4, gold can play h2n g2e g3s and the hostage is secure and the f3 trap is safe (depending on what else is going on)
While it is true that a g2 hostage CAN become active and start participating in an attack, they are often preventable by tactics I mentioned.
It is not a very big difference of opinion, maybe it's only 30-70 or 40-60 that I prefer an h3 hostage over a g2 hostage.
Excerpt:
One of the optimal hostage patterns is depicted above. The g3 caMel is supported by the g2 Cat, so Silver’s elephant needs two turns to dislodge Gold’s caMel. First move: 1s ee3n ee4e x x. Then, Silver’s elephant on f4 is not able to pull the caMel to g4, as the h4 Horse would unfreeze it. Thus, pushing the caMel to f3 would be the only action possible (second move: 2s ef4e Mg3w eg4s x)
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I think finishing the second move with eg3n deserves mention. These kinds of moves are why I prefer g2 hostages.
Later when talking about how to fight a hostage pattern with an EMH deadlock: "Forcing the Elephant versus camel fight to occur on the same wing minimized Silver’s disadvantage, while fighting this battle in the east would likely be catastrophic."
I think chessandgo overestimates the power of the strongest free piece. In the few moves it takes to break the hostage pattern, the other side can't really do a lot against good play unless gold already has some attack developing on the other side.
See http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=317760 where I was able to break the horse hostage for only a rabbit while my camel was on the opposite wing.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 26th, 2015, 1:54pm by browni3141 » |
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Boo
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Re: horse hostage
« Reply #2 on: Mar 27th, 2015, 3:34am » |
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Thanks for the valuable insights.
As for your game against Fritzlein, I think he might have misplayed the hostage slightly. I don't understand what was the purpose of 14s de7s, this allowed your elephant to comfortably occupy g5. Silver could continue harassing your pieces with 14s ec4e ed4e Hd3n hb5e while slowly bringing horse to support the elephant and I think eventually you won't be able to retreat.
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chessandgo
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Re: horse hostage
« Reply #3 on: Mar 27th, 2015, 3:36am » |
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For the g2 hostage vs h3 hostage, the phrasing could certainly be changed / expanded to reflect what you say here.
For the second item, I did not mention "finishing the second move with eg3n" because I was not aware of this move (I guess I became of it just now reading your post  ), it's a very good point.
For the strongest free piece, I think I'll stand by what I wrote (or just hinted) about its value. Looking at your linked game before 14s, gold's defensing position around c3 is basically optimally strong. Thus getting a rabbit for the hostage in the worst case scenario seems a confirmation of the fact that the strongest free piece gives a large advantage in general. Also, placing the dog on e6 on 15s allowed your Eg5 manoeuver (note to self: mention this tactic in AS&T 2.0), you would have had to use 3 extra steps otherwise. Finally, if Fritz had to play this whole fight again from the start of the hostage (before 9s), my guess would be that he would hope to gain more than in the game and treat the position differently. Maybe attack c3 before you get to advance rabbits up the a-file?
The hostage part of AS&T is the oldest one, maybe from 2008. All things considered, I'm very happy with how it held, and I would change many other parts before this one.
If I were to rewrite the book now it would be (marginally?) better, as I've grown as a player, an english-speaker and an "author" since the book was written. I have spent way too little time thinking about arimaa these last years though. If you, browni, were to write a book, it would be a much better thing for the arimaa community! But I'm not going too encourage you to do that, if and when you have to many things to say you'll have to write them, encouragements or not. My book became a book only because of Fritz's and Omar's persuasion, I was planning on forum posts at the time. I liked a lot your post http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=talk;action=display;nu m=1414369431, it was short, informative and to the point. I hope you'll write more of these ; maybe when you have enough of them you'll think you've got the backbone for a full book?
Edit: Boo beat me to it. That's what you get for writing an essay Here's more: the original plan of AS&T was to have a part 2 (the whole book as it is is part 1) on local fights. Who's going to win a fight in a 4*4 quadrant with no interference from pieces outside this quadrant. I hoped there would be clear cut answers, but it turned out to be too complicated. Knowing things like "EHD will always gain control of the trap when attacking rrrcdh" for example would be pretty handy, for bots too. Jdb asked questions in that vein in the chatroom a few weeks ago. I fear that's too big a task for me. The rules are a bit unclear too, for example: when playing on 4*4 only, the "c5" square becomes available to silver to defend c6 without fearing to be pushed and captured in c3 by Gold.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 27th, 2015, 3:46am by chessandgo » |
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Belteshazzar
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Re: horse hostage
« Reply #4 on: Mar 27th, 2015, 4:49am » |
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If anyone is thinking of writing a new book, I would suggest making a series of video tutorials instead. With a game like Arimaa, that would work a lot better.
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browni3141
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Re: horse hostage
« Reply #5 on: Mar 27th, 2015, 12:41pm » |
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on Mar 27th, 2015, 3:34am, Boo wrote:Thanks for the valuable insights.
As for your game against Fritzlein, I think he might have misplayed the hostage slightly. I don't understand what was the purpose of 14s de7s, this allowed your elephant to comfortably occupy g5. Silver could continue harassing your pieces with 14s ec4e ed4e Hd3n hb5e while slowly bringing horse to support the elephant and I think eventually you won't be able to retreat. |
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Fritzlein and I did think he misplayed the hostage position, but I think 14s was only an inaccuracy.
It's not completely clear, but something like 14s ec4e ed4e Hd3n hb5e 15g Mb3e Mc3n Hd4s Ra4e looks pretty good to me. I don't see how silver can prevent me from sacrificing a rabbit to buy two turns to perform the hostage breaking maneuver.
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browni3141
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Re: horse hostage
« Reply #6 on: Mar 27th, 2015, 12:53pm » |
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on Mar 27th, 2015, 3:36am, chessandgo wrote:
Edit: Boo beat me to it. That's what you get for writing an essay Here's more: the original plan of AS&T was to have a part 2 (the whole book as it is is part 1) on local fights. Who's going to win a fight in a 4*4 quadrant with no interference from pieces outside this quadrant. I hoped there would be clear cut answers, but it turned out to be too complicated. Knowing things like "EHD will always gain control of the trap when attacking rrrcdh" for example would be pretty handy, for bots too. Jdb asked questions in that vein in the chatroom a few weeks ago. I fear that's too big a task for me. The rules are a bit unclear too, for example: when playing on 4*4 only, the "c5" square becomes available to silver to defend c6 without fearing to be pushed and captured in c3 by Gold. |
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I studied that a little bit, too. I think I might study it more now, since it seems to come up so much. The pattern I studied was EH+minor pieces attacking a f6 with mh+minor pieces, while needing to defend d6 from the camel, and having f3 available to gold (typical position after an elephant rotation from a camel hostage). It is actually pretty easy to win here, but I was studying this particular pattern when I was only a few months into the game, so it was probably useful back then.
There are so many different armies and arrangements of them that this seems like a really complicated task, but some general things can be learned. I think one of the most important things for both sides to do quickly is take space on the outer files with a rabbit or piece advance.
Edit: My WC game with clyring is almost a repeat of my WC game with Adanac with how I attacked c6, except that clyring could not defend by occupying f5 because f3 controlled that key square for me. Against Adanac it did not because I didn't have a proper camel hostage and silver could scatter and use the elephant to defend f3. I haven't studied this type of attack much, but it seems I've converged so something over many games.
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| « Last Edit: Mar 27th, 2015, 12:58pm by browni3141 » |
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