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Arimaa >> Game Analysis >> Game 325694: bot_Clueless2013CC vs. Belteshazzar
(Message started by: Belteshazzar on Feb 16th, 2015, 11:55pm)

Title: Game 325694: bot_Clueless2013CC vs. Belteshazzar
Post by Belteshazzar on Feb 16th, 2015, 11:55pm
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=325694

Obviously I made a mistake letting my camel get captured at the end, but it was almost certainly too late then anyway.  Earlier, how could I have held control of the f3 trap?  I guess I could have done better on 23s.  I tend to be a very defensive player, and I'm still trying to learn how to effectively attack enemy traps.

Title: Re: Game 325694: bot_Clueless2013CC vs. Belteshazz
Post by supersamu on Feb 17th, 2015, 7:04am
7s de7s cf7s mf5e rf8s seems like a natural response to the bot's 7g; You advance minor pieces to unfreeze the camel and you also don't need to move your horse.

On 10s you advance your cat instead of the dog to f4, this will become more important later.

16s ed4n Hc5w ed5w hc4e looks better because you push the gold horse away from any relevant square and your elephant is in the way of the gold camel reaching your central horse

19s: your cat is not very useful in trying to have control over the f3 trap, it is just a glorified rabbit in a way, it is weaker than the gold dog, horse and elephant that are nearby the trap. If the piece in f3 was a silver dog, this move would have been very effective: 19s hg3s hg2n Cf2e df3s
Note that the same maneuver can be done by the silver elephant as well, and gold can also have a gold dog at f2 instead of the cat, this is why I used the unnecessary steps hg3s hg2n in my example

22s instead of immediately going after the gold camel, you should advance pieces to f3; The camel can't get further away from your elephant than it already is, so what else is gold going to do here other than waiting for your elephant to move further away from the f3 trap and then retake control over it? Just putting a piece on g4 would have prevented 23g

I guess the tactical save at 23s is: 23s df7s df6s df5s rg6s , but you don't want to have to play that move in the first place :)


Don't be shy to advance minor pieces with your E, M and H, since you are commiting to attack that trap anyways, and use your steps wisely to maintain the important squares with your big pieces (7s). The dog is preferable to a cat, since using the cat at home has the nice benefit that it is the best piece to deal with enemy rabbits, but the main point is that it is of equal strength to the enemy dog, and in normal circumstances the opponent doesn't have a horse in the backrank to deal with that dog.



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