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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> playing against or with a framed horse
        
(Message started by: robinson on May 7^th, 2005, 6:15am)

Title: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by robinson on May 7^th, 2005, 6:15am

hi everybody,
my last game vs karl makes me thinking a lot.
i am still not sure how the standard play should be when the opponent gets my horse framed.

a) i could try to brake it with my camel but have no chance to defend my diagonal trap vs his camel or camel-horse attack.

b) i could try to build an advantage on the other side because it takes a lot pieces to hold the frame.

in this game i was not sure what i wanted to do so karl had the chance to build up his strength.

paul mertens always sais to me that he doesnt care about a framed horse. but i still dont know how to make an advantage out of it.

what do you think???
or does anybody know about some game examples.

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by 99of9 on May 7^th, 2005, 6:56am

EDIT: I guess what you should do depends quite a bit on which sides of the trap each of the elephants are on, but in the discussion below I haven't considered that. If it matters a lot, we might have to split this discussion into 12 - for all the different possibilities!!

I guess you should try method (b)... 'cause method (a) sure didn't work for you!

Method (a) sounds pretty good if it's easy to do. This might be the case if the frame requires a horse on the leading edge. That horse is a prime target for a camel to snatch away. In most other cases though I think method (a) is risky.

I think method (b) is a little safer because you don't risk your camel, and you theoretically have the advantage over the other side of the board where all the action will happen. But the danger is that he may rotate his elephant out of the frame - then you'd be in real trouble. So if you try method (b) you've got to make your threats very quickly.

Unlike Paul, my basic philosophy at the moment is that a framed horse is a lost horse. Obviously you can choose your moment to lose it - and you should get a tempo advantage out of that. It is important to make sure you don't contort the rest of your pieces in a futile attempt to save it, and then lose them as well when the horse eventually dies.

now for a third option:

Option c:
Flood the enemy elephant with pieces and try to blockade it. Works when the elephant is on the outside wing of the framing. A game I highly recommend is my postal against Belbo, where he tried this approach. I got his horse framed. He flooded me. For the rest of the epic story, take a look at the game :-).

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by omar on May 7^th, 2005, 8:51pm

I think in some cases it might be OK to let the horse stay framed, but as Toby said it depends a lot on what other pieces are around. But most of the time I think it is better to avoid getting a major piece like a horse framed.

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by RonWeasley on May 9^th, 2005, 12:27pm

Change one of your cats into a frog. Then sacrifice it to turn your framed horse into a unicorn. The blood of the unicorn and a rabbit can make a camel jump over a horse twice. Use the first jump to confuse the opposing elephant. Or were you supposed to jump over a dog first? Wait, I think you turn your lazy dog into a quick brown fox. Where's Hermione?

What was the question again?

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by PMertens on May 9^th, 2005, 2:41pm

sometimes I believe a framed dog/cat/ rabbit is worse, because you need far less material to make the frame work

a horse can become a pain in the a.. if due to circumstances your phant has to go ... and with 2 horses and some more pieces I can even free up the defending phant

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by PMertens on May 9^th, 2005, 2:43pm

oh and Ron:

we wanted to save the horse ...
turning it into a unicorn and slaughtering it wont really help with that :-P

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by Fritzlein on May 9^th, 2005, 8:56pm

The more pieces that have been exchanged, the less valuable it becomes to frame an opposing horse. But maybe we are all assuming that the horse frame occurs with all the pieces still on the board.

I value a horse frame far below what 99of9 does. He seems to always get the framed horse captured eventually, but I can't seem to swing it. I consider a horse frame to be worth less than a camel hostage, for the simple reason that when I have a horse framed, my opponent can attack with the camel, forcing me to abandon the frame in exchange for getting a camel hostage.

I would say that a camel hostage is worth roughly a captured dog, and a horse frame worth roughly a captured cat. So I was approximately even with Robinson in the game that started this thread. But so much depends on the action of the camels in such a situation. Since Robinson's camel was better placed than mine, I thought I was losing.

Ever since my postal game with Adanac, I have thought that the proper response to a horse frame is to break the frame with the camel, but it is non-trivial to do that without giving up the camel hostage. It seems that trying to break the frame has to come as part of a more general advance on that wing. My mindset when my horse is framed is that I am NOT going to give it up for a tempo, so my elephant will stay there until I break the frame, so it is SAFE to advance a couple of little pieces on that side. My little pieces can't be captured on that side, because my elephant isn't leaving. I just need to make sure that they help keep my camel unfrozen and in a position to threaten to break the frame.

I wouldn't flood rabbits to try to block the wing unless the opposing camel is on that wing keeping my camel from breaking the frame. Then I might try to block in the opposing camel, because I have nothing else to do. But if the opposing camel is hanging out to help hold the frame, I don't feel at much of a disadvantage on the rest of the board.

What I really need to test my ideas is to let 99of9 get my horse framed, and see if he can force me to abandon it. If he does, then I'll concede that I have undervalued the horse frame, but if I am able to break the frame or make enough of a nuisance of myself by threatening to break the frame, then he might concede that he has overvalued the horse frame.

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by 99of9 on May 9^th, 2005, 9:58pm

on 05/09/05 at 20:56:57, Fritzlein wrote:

The more pieces that have been exchanged, the less valuable it becomes to frame an opposing horse. But maybe we are all assuming that the horse frame occurs with all the pieces still on the board.

Yes, that is certainly true, and important to say.

on 05/09/05 at 20:56:57, Fritzlein wrote:

I value a horse frame far below what 99of9 does. He seems to always get the framed horse captured eventually, but I can't seem to swing it. I consider a horse frame to be worth less than a camel hostage, for the simple reason that when I have a horse framed, my opponent can attack with the camel, forcing me to abandon the frame in exchange for getting a camel hostage.

I agree with this argument. I would usually be happy to abandon the horse frame in order to take a camel hostage. My pre-postal idea's were that a camel hostage is worth a whole H, and a horse frame is worth somewhere between D and (H-R). Although I must admit that Omar has already put a fairly strong challenge to this idea.

on 05/09/05 at 20:56:57, Fritzlein wrote:

What I really need to test my ideas is to let 99of9 get my horse framed, and see if he can force me to abandon it. If he does, then I'll concede that I have undervalued the horse frame, but if I am able to break the frame or make enough of a nuisance of myself by threatening to break the frame, then he might concede that he has overvalued the horse frame.

And I have to give up either a dog (to prove myself right), or a cat (to prove you wrong) for that? It would probably be a very interesting game - maybe we should try it (unrated :-) ) some time.

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by robinson on May 12^th, 2005, 9:44am

first of all thanks for your comments,

my last games with karl and naveed made me to agree with karl that a horse frame is not a lost horse. in the game with karl i think it was a big mistake to abondon the horse i think i had still some chances to hold my hometrap while breaking the frame with my camel. the game vs naveed was a good example how to break the frame
i think it is very important were my camel is when i got the horse framed.
helps it to frame and has to be rotated out at first the opponent has much time to bring his camel in a good position to break the frame.
is it on the other side i can immediatly attack his diagonal trap and try to take this over or pull some little pieces.

but i am open, too, for some "unrated" trys.

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by PMertens on May 12^th, 2005, 3:34pm

ha - he just accidently reaches 2000 points and now he starts being concerned for his rating ... lol :P

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by Adanac on Nov 29^th, 2005, 6:33pm

During the month of May I was busy with actuarial exams, so I missed this entire discussion about horse hostages. Now that I’ve got a bit more experience with horse hostage situtaions (and leisure time!) I’d like to contribute to the discussion.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I overlooked something below, or mis-evaluated a position, so I’d be interested in hearing other opinions.

To make it simple I’ll assume in every example that the gold horse in framed on the f6 square with the pinned piece being the gold elephant (presumably the horse frame is often a disaster for gold if the pinned piece isn’t the elephant).

I’ll assume that at least 30 pieces are on the board, because I agree with Fritzlein and 99of9 that horse frames quickly become far less valuable with more pieces traded off.

If the gold elephant is pinned on the f7 square, the horse frame clearly is a huge advantage for silver. Not only would the elephant be de-centralized after abandoning the horse, but it is also at serious risk of being blockaded (after a blockade, I think it would be best for a silver elephant or camel to then move the horse to a square such as g5 so that the f6 square could be occupied by silver).

If (i) the gold elephant is pinned on the g6 square and (ii) the silver elephant trying to rabbit pull along the a-file and (iii) the silver camel and 2 horses are framing the gold horse, then there may not be any advantage for silver because the piece on f5 can be pushed to f4 and threatened with capture by the gold elephant after it abandons its horse. However, with the gold elephant on g6, silver has a large advantage if the silver elephant occupies f5. The silver elephant is better centralized and the gold elephant may have to eventually abandon the horse for no compensation.

If the gold elephant occupies f5, I believe that silver has a large advantage if (i) the silver camel occupies g6, (ii) a silver horse occupies e6 and (iii) 4 small pieces blockade the f7 square. In this case, gold can break the blockade by using the camel to pull the e6 horse. However, with the silver elephant on the loose, this could prove very difficult! The silver elephant is free, in the meantime, to capture pieces in the c6 trap. This doesn’t work as well with a silver horse on g6 because the gold camel can more safely pull it away. If a silver elephant occupies e6, then silver has a huge advantage if the gold horse can be pulled/pushed from f6 to d6 and then captured on the c6 trap or dragged to c8 by a silver camel.

If the gold elephant occupies e6, I believe that gold actually has the advantage in almost all cases. Silver has to use too many pieces to maintain the blockade while the gold elephant maintains centralization in the perfect attacking square on e6. As long as gold controls the f3 trap (to prevent the horse from being pulled/pushed to f4) and the gold elephant doesn't move, the horse is perfectly safe and the position is very playable for gold. The biggest concern for gold is to make sure the gold camel isn't taken hostage!

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 1^st, 2005, 5:51pm

on 11/29/05 at 18:33:46, Adanac wrote:

If the gold elephant occupies f5, I believe that silver has a large advantage if (i) the silver camel occupies g6, (ii) a silver horse occupies e6 and (iii) 4 small pieces blockade the f7 square.

Clearly BlackKnight read your post before his WC game against Omar, even though you had only posted two days beforehand: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/replayFlash.cgi?gid=22019&s=w

This was the exact setup you specified, and it was every bit as advantageous as you speculated. Arimaa theory marches forward!

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 1^st, 2005, 6:10pm

on 11/29/05 at 18:33:46, Adanac wrote:

If the gold elephant occupies e6, I believe that gold actually has the advantage in almost all cases.

This claim is very important because of its ramifications for the soundness of the EH attack, but I'm not entirely convinced. What did you think of the 2005 Postal Championship game 99of9 versus Belbo?
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/replayFlash.cgi?gid=11816&s=w Did Belbo blow his advantage from the horse frame, or did he not have the advantage in the first place?

Title: Re: playing against or with a framed horse
Post by omar on Dec 3^rd, 2005, 1:48pm

on 05/09/05 at 21:58:09, 99of9 wrote:

It would probably be a very interesting game - maybe we should try it (unrated :-) ) some time.

The unrated, unlimited time mode is perfect for this sort of testing because it lets you try things and even takeback unlimited number of moves. And the game can be done in a postal manner. I used that once while teaching someone about Arimaa.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=8082

If you replay this game you can see all the takebacks we did and the different variations that were tried.