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(Message started by: Adanac on Dec 9th, 2005, 1:25pm)
Title: Wikibook
Post by Adanac on Dec 9th, 2005, 1:25pm
I'm enthusiastic about Fritzlein's idea of starting up a Wikibook.  To get the ball rolling, we've discussed some ideas for an outline.  There's a lot of material covering just about every scenario.  Fortunately, with all of these topics there are many, many opportunities for everyone to chip in and get involved  :D

So far, here are our preliminary idea for the outline:

1 Overview
 1.1 Brief description of game, objective, Challenge
 1.2 history/development of the game
 1.3 Where to play / description of arimaa.com
2 How to Play
 2.1 Board
 2.2 Pieces; mention possible use of chess board & pieces
 2.3 Initial setup rules
 2.4 How to move (incl. push, pull, freeze)
 2.5 How to capture
 2.6 Winning the game (incl. draw, repetition, immobilize)      
 2.7 Notation
3 Introduction to Tactics (copy from Wikipedia)
 3.1 one move goal
 3.2 one move capture
 3.3 capture defense
 3.4 false protection
 3.5 fork
 3.6 fence
 3.7 limits of tactics
4 Introduction to Strategy (copy from Wikipedia)
 4.1 Forcing goal
   4.1.1 Race games
 4.2 Intermediate objectives
 4.3 Trap control
   4.3.1 Taking control (E-H example)
   4.3.2 Owned vs. Deadlocked vs. Contested
   4.3.3 Losing control (owning no traps)
   4.3.4 The second front
 4.4 Elephant mobility
   4.4.1 Elephant blockade
   4.4.2 Elephant holding Camel hostage
   4.4.3 Elephant pinned to framed horse
   4.4.4 Elephant pinned to framed rabbit
   4.4.5 Elephant centralization
 4.5 Distribution of force
   4.5.1 Win by one (e.g. camel holding horse hostage)
5 Relative Values of Pieces
 5.1 Importance of Elephants
 5.2 Theories on Unbalanced Exchanges i.e M vs. HD, etc.
 5.3 Impact of Piece Exchanges on value of rabbits
 5.4 Quantity vs. Quality of Pieces in the Middlegame & Endgame            
6 Lone Elephant Attacks
 6.1 Objectives & Risks
 6.2 Ideal Attacker & Defender Piece Placement
 6.3 Defensive Strategies & Counter-Attacks
 6.4 Initial Piece Setup Ideas
 6.5 Expand upon rabbit dragging and frames from chapter 4
 6.6 Dual Lone-Elephant Strategies
7 Elephant – Camel Attacks
 7.1 Objectives & Risks
 7.2 Ideal Attacker & Defender Piece Placement
 7.3 Defensive Strategies & Counter-Attacks
 7.4 Initial Piece Setup Ideas
 7.5 If enemy camel has been removed
 7.6 Expand upon the risks covered in chapter 3 i.e. camel hostage
 7.7 Advancing rabbit(s) ahead of camel
8 Elephant – Horse Attacks
 8.1 Objectives & Risks
 8.2 Ideal Attacker & Defender Piece Placement
 8.3 Defensive Strategies & Counter-Attacks
 8.4 Initial Piece Setup Ideas
 8.5 If both camels have been removed
 8.6 If attacker’s camel has been removed
 8.7 If defender’s camel has been removed
 8.8 Expand upon the horse frames described in chapter 3
9 Elephant – Minor Piece Attacks
 9.1 Objectives & Risks
 9.2 Ideal Attacker & Defender Piece Placement
 9.3 Defensive Strategies & Counter-Attacks
 9.4 Initial Piece Setup Ideas
 9.5 E+D/E+C attacks on a depleted board
 9.6 E+R attacks
   9.6.1 Burrow with a rabbit
10 Multi-Piece Swarming Attacks
 10.1 Objectives & Risks
 10.2 Ideal Attacker & Defender Piece Placement
 10.3 Defensive Strategies & Counter-Attacks
 10.4 Initial Piece Setup Ideas
 10.5 Expand upon pros/cons of rabbit advances from chapter 4
 10.6 Expand upon blockades from chapter 4
 10.7 Expand upon Space & Mobility concepts from chapter 4
11 Camel – Horse Attacks
     (Possibly combine this into the next chapter)
12 Double-Trap Attacks
 12.1 Objectives & Risks
 12.2 Ideal Attacker & Defender Piece Placement
 12.3 Defensive Strategies & Counter-Attacks
 12.4 Initial Piece Setup Ideas
 12.5 With rabbit advances
 12.6 E+H attack followed by later M+H attack
 12.7 Simultaneous attacks in the opening
13 Other Attacking Ideas
14 Sample game(s) that demonstrate a variety of themes, strategies and tactics.  The Omar vs. Fritzlein postal game is a good sample because it explores many facets of Arimaa; no doubt we can find other and/or we'll create some more during the upcoming postal tournament & later rounds of the World Championships
15 Glossary
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 9th, 2005, 8:52pm
Just considering the table of contents has made me realize that I want to re-organize the basic strategy material.  My understanding of the game has changed a good deal since the last overhaul of the Wikipedia "Arimaa strategy" article.  I think I can get my thoughts in a better order than before.  Moving existing content over to Wikibooks, and thinking in book/chapter/section format, will be a good excuse for me to do that overhaul.

I'm hoping you and others will write the new material on specific attacking and defensive strategies.  That's vital information for anyone learning the game, but I tend to think too abstractly to write it well.  I'm always looking for an über-strategy, and don't want to commit to anything specific, so if I wrote those chapters I would always be hemming and hawing, unwilling to commit to anything concrete.

I like the thought of many smaller pages.  For example, the Arimaa Tactics article, which is currently a single page, should definitely be broken up into seven smaller pages as an invitation to expansion.  I currently have a single diagram for "goal in one", but a manual for beginners should have more examples than that.  Similarly for capture, and for capture defense, etc.  We all know a lot about basic tactics from personal experience, a lot that isn't written down anywhere, and it would be good to go into more detail, if anyone cares to take on that task.

Other possible chapters to consider:
*Arimaa bots: general info relating to bot programming, possibly including a page detailing specifics about each bot
*Endgame strategies, insofar as we know anything about this
*Tactics related to strategic objectives (i.e. not just goal and capture, but trap control, hostage taking, framing, etc.)

Maybe there are yet other things folks would be willing to write chapters about.  This is a big project, or could be, but I'll start chipping away at it, and hope that others chip in.  Now that we have a diagramming tool it should be much easier to talk about strategy in a vivid way, with lots of examples, without having to resort to the GIMP for every new page or edit of an old page.

I'm excited to write more about Arimaa.  I can say from experience that writing about the game forces me to think about it more clearly, and thus makes me a better player.  Writing can teach you what you know and what you don't know, which is a great starting point for learning more.  If you have anything to say about playing Arimaa, I highly recommend that you try to get it in writing, for your own good.  :-)
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by omar on Dec 10th, 2005, 2:42am
I can't wait to read the book; I'll definitely learn a few new things from it :-)

Will it be possible to have various editions of the book? With Arimaa being in such a state of evolution it would be nice if we could preserve it's course of development. So for example we might have a different edition for each year. That way I could go back to the 2006 edition and see what was known about the strategies at the time.

If the wikibook site does not easily allow this. What I'd like to do is download a snapshot of the pages once a year and preserve them locally on the arimaa.com server. I don't think this violates their GNU FDL copyright.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by doublep on Dec 10th, 2005, 11:03am

on 12/10/05 at 02:42:18, omar wrote:
If the wikibook site does not easily allow this. What I'd like to do is download a snapshot of the pages once a year and preserve them locally on the arimaa.com server. I don't think this violates their GNU FDL copyright.


That doesn't violate GNU FDL as long as your local version is explicitely placed under GNU FDL as well. I.e. it must be available under the same distribution terms as in the Wikipedia. Then it is absolutely fine.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Adanac on Dec 10th, 2005, 10:19pm
We had better be careful when we create our book so as to avoid violating the Wiki rule on original research.  As long as we are only annotating games in the database and not proposing theories that are untested in practice, will that be acceptable?

"primary research in any field — Wikibooks is not a place to publish primary research such as proposing theories and solutions, original ideas, defining terms, coining words, etc., and, as with other Wikimedia projects, maintains a strict "No original research" policy. If you have done primary research on a topic, publish your results in normal peer-reviewed journals, or elsewhere on the web, such as at Academia Wikicity. "
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Ryan_Cable on Dec 11th, 2005, 1:54am
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Trading_Card_Game
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oni_d20
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/JAGS-2

I doubt there will be much objection to us making an Arimaa Wikibook.  The no original research rule is mostly intended to limit the Wikipedia’s collection of conspiracy theories by requiring that they at least be speculated about elsewhere on the internet.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by omar on Dec 14th, 2005, 3:45pm

on 12/10/05 at 11:03:33, doublep wrote:
That doesn't violate GNU FDL as long as your local version is explicitely placed under GNU FDL as well. I.e. it must be available under the same distribution terms as in the Wikipedia. Then it is absolutely fine.


Thanks Paul.

I tried to make a local copy of the current Arimaa wikipedia pages so that we have a snap shot of it for future reference. I tried it using wget, but they disallow wget in their robots.txt file. Does anyone know of any other programs we can use to download the content under the .../wiki/Arimaa section. If someone is able to do it, please zip it up and send it to me so I can put it on the arimaa.com site.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 29th, 2006, 12:52pm
I finally finished revamping the "Introduction to Strategy" section of the Arimaa Wikibook. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Arimaa  I think that folks who haven't read it yet will find it a bit more modern than what is on the Wikipedia.

Adanac has also contributed volumes of opening theory, which people should read if they haven't yet.

What we need next is a series of pages about specific types of mid-games, for example:

*Playing after a trade of M for HD
*Playing with a camel hostage.
*Playing with a horse frame.
*Playing when you have a horse hostage with your camel

Also we could use a generalized article about endgames.  I suppose not much is known for sure about endgames, but it would be good to lay out what we suspect the general principles are.

Chessandgo, I know you have been contemplating writing more about Arimaa.  Why not join our collaborative effort to make a book?  All insights and styles of writing are welcome!
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Adanac on Jul 31st, 2006, 10:17am

on 07/29/06 at 12:52:13, Fritzlein wrote:
I finally finished revamping the "Introduction to Strategy" section of the Arimaa Wikibook. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Arimaa  I think that folks who haven't read it yet will find it a bit more modern than what is on the Wikipedia.

Adanac has also contributed volumes of opening theory, which people should read if they haven't yet.

What we need next is a series of pages about specific types of mid-games, for example:

*Playing after a trade of M for HD
*Playing with a camel hostage.
*Playing with a horse frame.
*Playing when you have a horse hostage with your camel

Also we could use a generalized article about endgames.  I suppose not much is known for sure about endgames, but it would be good to lay out what we suspect the general principles are.

Chessandgo, I know you have been contemplating writing more about Arimaa.  Why not join our collaborative effort to make a book?  All insights and styles of writing are welcome!


I’d like to do some extensive re-writes for the Wikibook but I’ve hit a bit of a roadblock.  Here’s what I think needs to be updated/improved:

1.  A new format for annotating games.  I really like Chessandgo’s style of using BlackKnight’s game viewer to provide comments simultaneously with the moves.  It’s much better than having a few diagrams here and there with scattered analysis or even a complete text annotation with a link to the moves on the arimaa website.  I’ve halted my analysis of Paul Lefert – Frank Heinemann Postal Game (in the Dual Lone Elephant) until there’s an improved Wikibook system of annotation.

2.  Re-write all of the individual sections for E+M Attacks/E+H Attacks, etc. -  I find that there’s a lot of repetition.  For example, there’s too much explanation that it’s best to place an elephant on d6 and supporting horse/camel on b6 or c7 in almost every chapter.  It would be much better to have a single chapter devoted to high-level attacking concepts (balanced forces, elephant on d6, importance of a strong piece on b6, etc.) and then trim down the current chapters 6-12.

3.  Similar to the previous point, I’d like to remove the setup sections from E+M/E+H/E+Minor Piece, etc. and just have a general chapter called about the setup.  With current opening theory, it seems the only attack-specific chapter that would require its own section for setting up the pieces would be a blue22-style Double-Trap Attack.

4.  Perhaps some new chapters for “Advanced Tactics” and “Advanced Strategy” – the latter could be devoted to full-board strategic ideas.  I think that the key to understanding Arimaa is not to study E+M attacks in gruesome detail but to just understand the high-level idea that the silver camel will be unopposed on the east wing if the gold camel is held hostage on the west wing.  I’m not sure whether these should precede or follow our current chapters 6-12.

5.  What happened to chapters “1. Overview” & “2. Playing the Game”??  Didn’t we already create these sections?

6.  I like Fritzlein’s idea for an endgame chapter, but that may be the most difficult chapter of them all to create!  Who’s feeling ambitious?

7.  Is Omar planning to convert the move notation to be consistent with the colour of the pieces?  I’ve never believed it was consistent to label the moves 1w 1b 2w 2b 3w 3b if we’re using gold and silver pieces.  I’ve been using a 1g 1s 2g 2s convention in the Wikibook but I do want to ensure that the style is consistent throughout.  I’ve thought of switching my notation to white & black, but then that’s a lot of unnecessary work if we’re eventually going to switch back to gold & silver.  Another consistency issue:  as I edit my sections I’ll switch the piece names to lower case.   I had been using “Gold Elephant” rather than “gold elephant”, but I’ll switch over to be consistent with everyone else.

8.  In order to simply concepts such as E+H Attack, I always assumed a gold attack against c6 for the illustration.  That way I could say "the gold elephant belongs on d6" rather than "the attacking elephant belong on the sixth rank between the two enemy traps".  Previously each chapter had contained a bold disclaimer that the ideas described apply equally to every trap, but now that we're creating sub-chapters, we may need to place disclaimers in every sub-chapter too!
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Adanac on Jul 31st, 2006, 11:13am

on 07/29/06 at 12:52:13, Fritzlein wrote:
Also we could use a generalized article about endgames.  I suppose not much is known for sure about endgames, but it would be good to lay out what we suspect the general principles are.


Maybe we could brainstorm some general principles for the endgame and then write up a chapter.

-  Piece mobility becomes increasingly important during the endgame, especially rabbit mobility.

-  Endgames should be played very aggressively.  

-  If there is active play on both wings then goal threats and initiative are far more important than material.

-  Advanced rabbits on both wings are a nightmare to defend against.  If the opponent has 1 rabbit on the west wing and 4 rabbits on the east wing, the west wing rabbit is far more valuable than any individual east wing rabbit.

-  Corner rabbits (a1, h1, a8, h8 ) are extremely valuable defenders against advanced enemy rabbits.  Obviously this won't apply in all situations (e.g. a rabbit advance up the middle) but would everyone agree that the corner squares are more important as a general rule than b1-g1, b8-g8?  Perhaps too hypothetical to include in the “facts only” Wikibook anyway.

-  The “Relative Value of Pieces” section covers this already, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to mention again that rabbits become increasingly important during the endgame.  But as Ryan proved against me, they don’t necessarily become *more* valuable than dogs and horses!!  ;)

-  Elephants should always remain centralized unless crucial for a goal attack/defence.

- Rabbit frames are more dangerous on a depleted board.  For example:
   Gold:  Ra6 Rb5 Mc2 Cb3 Ed6
   Silver: ra8 ra7 rb8 rc7 hb6 da5
   Silver should not spend 4 steps to a frame a nicely blockaded rabbit, regardless of what the board looks like on the east wing – especially since the west-wing rabbits may have better goal prospects if shifted towards the middle of the board

-  We could describe tricks such as pushing/pulling enemy rabbits onto their 2nd rank and keeping a clear space next to the corner.  Example with silver to move:
     
   Gold: Ra7 Ca6 Ec8
   Silver: ra8 rb7 rc7 rd7 cb6
   Hmmm, maybe that’s more of a middle-game trick than an endgame one.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 31st, 2006, 6:00pm

on 07/31/06 at 10:17:30, Adanac wrote:
1.  A new format for annotating games.  I really like Chessandgo’s style of using BlackKnight’s game viewer to provide comments simultaneously with the moves.  It’s much better than having a few diagrams here and there with scattered analysis or even a complete text annotation with a link to the moves on the arimaa website.  I’ve halted my analysis of Paul Lefert – Frank Heinemann Postal Game (in the Dual Lone Elephant) until there’s an improved Wikibook system of annotation.

What do you suggest?  BlackKnight's game viewer is obviously the best place to put commentary, since it can handle variations, but it won't have the exposure and permanance of Wikibooks.

If we do put annotated games into Wikibooks, then a diagram for every comment seems essential.  If we don't diagram every comment, then I feel we might as well not have any annotated games in Wikibooks, and rather put everything into BlackKnight's game viewer.


Quote:
2.  Re-write all of the individual sections for E+M Attacks/E+H Attacks, etc. -  I find that there’s a lot of repetition.

I agree.  It would be much easier to digest if you broke out a bunch of the common information into an Opening Theory page, and had briefer pages about information specific to each opening.


Quote:
3.  Similar to the previous point, I’d like to remove the setup sections from E+M/E+H/E+Minor Piece, etc. and just have a general chapter called about the setup.

Agreed.  There needs to be more about the setup than my dinky subpage in Introduction to Strategy, but it seems logical to me to collect various ideas in one place, after a discussion of general opening theory.


Quote:
4.  Perhaps some new chapters for “Advanced Tactics” and “Advanced Strategy” – the latter could be devoted to full-board strategic ideas.

I definitely agree.  Not only do there need to be deeper examples of forced goal and forced material win, there need to be tactical examples about attaining strategic objectives, e.g. "Gold to move and ensure an elephant blockade" or "Silver to move and insure a horse frame"


Quote:
I think that the key to understanding Arimaa is not to study E+M attacks in gruesome detail but to just understand the high-level idea that the silver camel will be unopposed on the east wing if the gold camel is held hostage on the west wing.

I sort of agree.  I think that advanced strategy requires understanding certain types of positions in gruesome detail, especially camel-hostage positions.  I stand by my suggestion of themed mid-game positions as a basis for advanced strategy, and I suggest they come before the opening theory section.  You can't really discuss an E+M opening attack very clearly without knowing when a camel-hostage is terrible, acceptable, or even advantageous to the hostage-giver.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 31st, 2006, 7:10pm
I like all the ideas you presented for the endgame page.  There's no specific treatment of goal attack and goal defense yet, and an endgame section seems like a logical place for that discussion to go.  You're probably better equipped to write an endgame page than I am, but I might take it as a project if you are busy re-organizing your other pages.  The one idea I would add is that having a piece (even a mere cat) directly in front of an advanced rabbit gives one many more defensive options than blocking a rabbit with a rabbit does.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 31st, 2006, 7:19pm

on 07/31/06 at 10:17:30, Adanac wrote:
Another consistency issue:  as I edit my sections I’ll switch the piece names to lower case.   I had been using “Gold Elephant” rather than “gold elephant”, but I’ll switch over to be consistent with everyone else.

I tried it your way for a bit, and found that I liked lower case piece names better.  Too much upper case seemed distracting rather than clarifying.

On the other hand, I do like to use capital "Gold" as a convenient abbreviation for "the player controlling the gold pieces".  I've gotten so used to it that even "the gold player" seems too long.  I try to consisently use lower case for "gold" as an adjective, e.g. "the gold elephant", so that when upper case "Gold" appears it is a tipoff that I'm talking about a person, e.g. "all that Gold can do now is push rabbits."

IMHO this capitalization is a good way to be clear and brief, but I'm open to alternatives.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 31st, 2006, 9:28pm
I copied the rules over from Wikipedia into the "Playing the Game" page, and created an "Overview" page based on other Wiki material.  The former still needs to be edited to fit the purpose of the Wikibook (rather than The Wikipedia) and the latter is very rough, because I can't think what all belongs in an overview.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Adanac on Aug 1st, 2006, 8:55am
Okay, once I catch up on all my postal games and play a few of our 45s tournament games, I'll try to devote a couple of hours per day to the Wikibook.  I believe we now have 21 chapters, with most of them requiring considerable work.  :o Actually, I am looking forward to cleaning up the mess and creating a readable, informative, diagram-filled Wikibook.   :)

1. Overview -> needs considerable re-write
2. Playing the Game -> edit to fit the purpose of Wikibook
3. Introduction to Tactics
4. Introduction to Strategy
5. Relative Value of Pieces
6. Opening Theory -> needs to be created -> will include setup & ideas leading into the 8 attack-specific chapters below
7. Positioning for an Attack -> probably needs a better title -> Will replace repetitive information in the following chapters
8. Advanced Tactics -> needs to be created -> ideas for the intermediate player; not for beginners -> should have a disclaimer that the reader should play several games before reading this chapter
9. Advanced Strategy -> needs to be created -> same disclaimers as Advanced Tactics
These 8 chapters need to be re-written to remove redundancies, edited to reflect newly discovered theories and expanded with more diagrams
10. Lone Elephant Attacks
11. Elephant and Camel Attacks
12. Elephant and Horse Attacks
13. Elephant and Minor Piece Attacks
14. Multi-Piece Swarming Attacks
15. Camel and Horse Attacks
16. Double-Trap Attacks
17. Other Attacking Ideas
18. Endgame Theory -> needs to be created
19. Arimaa Challenge History
20. Sample Games
21.Glossary
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Adanac on Aug 1st, 2006, 3:43pm

on 08/01/06 at 08:55:49, Adanac wrote:
Okay, once I catch up on all my postal games and play a few of our 45s tournament games, I'll try to devote a couple of hours per day to the Wikibook.


Fortunately it was a quiet day at the office and I was able to create some rough drafts for the past several hours :)  One thing I've noticed is that placing the chapters in a logical order is more difficult than I would have thought.  For example, this morning I had suggested Opening Theory (with a section on the Setup) as Chapter 6 and Positional Theory for Attacking as Chapter 7, which seems like a more natural order than vice versa.   However, I'm finding it very difficult to explain WHY the camel should be setup in the middle and why the horses should be setup on the b and g files without first having a chapter on ideal piece placement for attack & defence  ???  I guess I'll move Attacking Theory up to chapter 6, even though it's a strange order.

It's a similar situation to chess where many authors recommend learning endgame theory, then middlegame theory, then opening theory in that order.   Arimaa endgame theory isn't as important as chess endgame theory, but I do believe we should explain some middlegame ideas before the opening theory here.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by jdb on Aug 1st, 2006, 6:32pm
Excellent presentation, Adanac.

Maybe somewhere around chapter 5 (ish) a section on how to win a won position might be appropriate. (Like how to win KR vs K in chess) Something showing how to convert a big material advantage into a goal. Perhaps the biggest material advantage would be the opponent lost his elephant. (Or maybe start with a full camel advantage) The section could show how to take control of both enemy traps and why this leads to a win. Maybe then some of the middle game ideas would be easier to explain.

Personally, I think the camel hostage situation is a very good place to start for explaining strategy. It directly shows how the hostage holder gets the dominant piece on the rest of the board. (Advanced defences like flooding might be deferred to a later time)

Just My 2 Cents
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 1st, 2006, 7:11pm

on 08/01/06 at 15:43:38, Adanac wrote:
Fortunately it was a quiet day at the office and I was able to create some rough drafts for the past several hours :)

Awesome.  I can't wait to see them.


Quote:
One thing I've noticed is that placing the chapters in a logical order is more difficult than I would have thought.

I think the chess analogy of putting opening theory last is very sensible.  However, I differ from chess instructors who would put endgame first.  In my mind a study of tactics is most useful to chess beginners, and that leads nicely into elementary strategy.

Whoever is putting in the time clearly gets to decide on the structure, so do whatever works for you, Adanac.  My imagined outline would be this:

1 Overview
2 Playing The Game
3 Introduction to Tactics
4 Introduction to Strategy
5 Relative Value of Pieces
6 Advanced Tactics
7 Midgame Strategy in various positions
7A Camel hostage
7B Horse Frame
7C Camel holding horse hostage
7D Multiple contested traps
8 Goal Attack and Defense
9 Endgame Strategy
10 General Opening theory
10A Lone Elephant attack
10B Elephant-Horse attack
10C Dual trap attack

Incidentally, I started the Advanced Tactics page with a position that is apparently too advanced for me to analyze!  I can't decide if Silver can get an elephant blockade (or similar tangible advantage) or not.  :-[
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by obiwan on Aug 6th, 2006, 11:13pm
[quote author=Fritzlein link=board=talk;num=1134156304;start=15#17 date=08/01/06 at 19:11:46]
Awesome.  I can't wait to see them.

I think the chess analogy of putting opening theory last is very sensible.  However, I differ from chess instructors who would put endgame first.  In my mind a study of tactics is most useful to chess beginners, and that leads nicely into elementary strategy.

[/quote]

I've taken a look at the wikibook and like it very much. I would like to suggest adding smaller section for beginners. I might even be better qualified to do a "for dummies" section.

I found that the stuff there was "at my level and beyond" and gave me a lot to improve my game - but I can already beat bots with fairly good reliability. I'm thinking a section to help people get to be at least as strong as the bots could help.

To go along with the chess analogy, the way I learned was to first get a material advantage and then to use it. So start with forks, pins, and discovered check (getting material advantage) and then move on to the basic KQ vs K, KR vs K, KP+minor vs K endgames (using material advantage).

The arimaa parallels might be fork, frame, and hostage (getting material advantage) and then taking control of an enemy trap and sending a rabbit through after the opposition scatters (using material advantage).

I'm thinking something brief and a little lower level than what is there right now which helps them get to the point where they can appreciate the other stuff.
Title: Re: Wikibook
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 7th, 2006, 4:11pm

on 08/06/06 at 23:13:40, obiwan wrote:
The arimaa parallels might be fork, frame, and hostage (getting material advantage) and then taking control of an enemy trap and sending a rabbit through after the opposition scatters (using material advantage).

Ah, it would make an excellent page to show how an E+H+R attack can be used to convert a material advantage.  Given that humans generally defend such an attack with an elephant, prolonging the game, I had forgotten how effective this can be against computers who don't bring an elephant to defend.  Or maybe I should say "never knew" rather than "had forgotten", because it has always been my style to win material and use that extra material to win even more material, rather than using it to make a goal threat.

Perhaps a successful E+H+R goal attack position could lead off a general goal attack chapter.


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