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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Mertens Attack
        
(Message started by: Fritzlein on Nov 1^st, 2004, 7:26pm)

Title: Mertens Attack
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1^st, 2004, 7:26pm

It is interesting how the games themselves form a sort of theoretical discussion of proper play, but I am interested in a bit of verbal discussion as well.

Omar et. al. have demonstrated in many ways that it is not so bad to have the opposing elephant hold your horse hostage, as long as the horse can't be framed. Usually your own elephant has enough activity to prevent a hostage horse from being framed. Therefore openings these days seem to feature significantly more elephant + horse attacking, instead of just lone elephant attacking which seemed to be more prevalent when I was learning the game.

In game 9138, however, PMertens raised the stakes by advancing rabbits along the wing with the elephant and horse. It was a fast-timed game, and I couldn't immediately think of a good counter to a strategy that no one has ever tried against me before. But even thinking after the fact, I'm not sure what I could have done.

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A) I can't prevent his elephant from advancing, of course.

B) If the horse advances, I can't think of anything better to do than take it hostage. Surely an elephant + horse attack is too potent for me to ignore unless I can immediately threaten his camel, which he can keep safe at first. Counter-attacking isn't likely to be successful as Silver, because as Gold he'll get in the first hit.

C) I can't stop rabbits from advancing on the attacked side of the board. There are too many of them, too many friendly pieces to unfreeze them, and I can't kill anything on that side of the board, because he's protecting both traps on that side.

D) Once he has an elephant, a horse, and a couple of advanced rabbits on that side, it is too dangerous for my elephant to leave, even to attack the opposing camel. He'll just grind me up and push through a rabbit. So it's camel versus camel on the rest of the board.

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To this point I don't think there's anything I can do to stop the attack except struggle for position. The question, then, is who is winning in the resulting position. Obviously that depends on the exact configuration of pieces around the trap where both of our elephants our. But it is possible that

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E) If the attacked side of the board gets clogged enough, it is _his_ elephant that is more able to leave. He can potentially advance his camel and attack my other trap too, because his elephant is more centralized than mine.

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The devil is in the details, i.e. the ongoing struggle for position in all parts of the board, but as a _strategy_ there doesn't seem to be anything obviously wrong with it. I could certainly anticipate that, after clogging one side of the board, the attacker might be able to start a general rabbit advance on the other side as well. This type of hyper-aggressive play is not aiming at quick captures -- indeed the game could go a long time before any piece gets taken -- but aims to set up rabbit goal threats that seriously constrain the opponent's options.

What do y'all think?

Title: Re: Mertens Attack
Post by 99of9 on Nov 1^st, 2004, 8:23pm

One thing you can think about is getting your camel over to where he advanced his horse. If you can't get his horse framed, then the second best option is to take it hostage with your camel, then take the initiative with your elephant.

But this isn't a definative answer to the whole onslaught question, just a tactical possibility.

Title: Re: Mertens Attack
Post by PMertens on Nov 2^nd, 2004, 8:28am

I am flattered, but I want a rematch ;-)

Title: Re: Mertens Attack
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 2^nd, 2004, 12:10pm

on 11/02/04 at 08:28:02, PMertens wrote:

I am flattered, but I want a rematch ;-)

You'll get a rematch all right. I'll even give you Gold again so I can see if I can beat off the scary attack. I tried it myself with Gold against Naveed in game 9135. I wanted to get a second rabbit rolling on the first wing, but naveed played very actively and I didn't have time. On the other hand, once I got a rabbit rolling on the second wing, I was in pretty good shape. I think maybe at that point I was strategically winning, although clearly lots of tactics happened before and after, and the tactics make a big difference.