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        Arimaa >> Game Analysis >> Unequal Exchanges
        
(Message started by: Kraizy_Dave on Mar 16^th, 2012, 3:50pm)

Title: Unequal Exchanges
Post by Kraizy_Dave on Mar 16^th, 2012, 3:50pm

I just played a strange game against Bomb (220629 / 277510, I don't know which number I need).

Please could someone have a look at it and offer some analysis. I am particularly interested in the exchanges because I felt like I kept making losing exchanges but I ended up benefitting because bomb undervalued my rabbits and eventually my numbers prevailed.

For example, I was a cat and a rabbit up when I gave up a camel hostage for a rabbit followed by giving away my camel for a horse... Who was winning?

I then I won another rabbit and felt that I was winning despite the lack of a camel... but then I blundered a dog. I felt I had to attack at this point so I deliberately gave up a horse hostage to try and blockade his elephant. Once I had the blockade I wanted to avoid a slow painful defeat so I made bizzare losing exchanges rather than lose the blockade (e.g. I swapped a cat and horse for a dog).

In the end I think Bomb should have won by taking rabbits in the C3 square (e.g. move 73g). I am hoping that there are plenty of lessons for me to learn from this game.

Title: Re: Unequal Exchanges
Post by Adanac on Mar 16^th, 2012, 4:20pm

You had a significant lead after the trades on moves 41. I’ll generally trade my camel for any 4 pieces, including 4 rabbits. You got a horse, cat & 2 rabbits for yours, which is very good. Even after losing your dog on move 50 you still had a material advantage due to having 3 extra pieces.

As more and more pieces get traded off the board it becomes more important to have lots of rabbits and the importance of strong pieces diminishes. For example, by move 75 your extra rabbits give you an enormous advantage. It also helps a lot that the gold elephant is decentralized and not involved in the action. The fact that Gold had a camel and you didn’t was a small advantage for Bomb but it’s insignificant compared to your powerful of extra rabbits. Look at how the last 20 moves revolved around your goal threats while the supposedly “strong” gold camel & horse were powerless to stop the tide of the silver advance. Creating goal threats becomes very important in the endgame while having fewer, stronger pieces generally isn’t as good.

Title: Re: Unequal Exchanges
Post by Hippo on Mar 16^th, 2012, 4:37pm

Link to the game:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=277510&role=v&side=w

Title: Re: Unequal Exchanges
Post by Kraizy_Dave on Mar 16^th, 2012, 5:05pm

Thanks. At what stage would have been Bombs best chance to turn things around? If you had been in my position what would you have done differently (probably everything :D)?