Interesting Boardgames

Amazons Piet Hein's Hex Game Chess Mancala N in a Row
Go Sliding Piece Games

Interesting Pencil and Paper Games.

Dots and Boxes nRich Games Sprouts

Dots and Boxes

Dots and Boxes Analysis Exercise Try to develop better strategies.

Dots and Boxes Freeware Download a Dots and Boxes program. This is very hard to beat on its higher levels.

Dots and Boxes online in HTML5 The article contains a summary of the basic tactics and reference to the book by Berlekamp on higher strategies..

WIKI Dots and boxes.

Gametable - dots and boxes player. Several games in mutliplayer variants. The strategy level can be set and is hard to beat on the higher levels.

Amazons

Amazons WIKI page Amazons is a chess variant which is extremely easy to learn but very difficult to master. It is a very simple yet very satifying game.

Amazons Program The easiest way to learn how to play Amazons is probably to download the program from this site and have a go.

Go

SERVERS

Kiseido Go Server Play Go online. All you need to play Go against players from all over the world. (This won't come through the school's firewall but should work on a home PC. Talk to your parents.)

Online-go.com Browser based Go server. Plenty of people to play.

REFERENCE

British Go Association. Go is the oldest hardest and best board game in the world, ever, honest.

Introduction to Go These pages provide a tutorial in the basics of the game.

Sensei Go library website Large library site devoted to playing go and other strategy games.

GO SOFTWARE

Cosumi.net go player. Go playing program which runs on most modern browsers.

nRich Go articles

Behind the Rules of Go

Going first

Sufficient but Not Necessary: Two Eyes and Seki in Go

Go Programming

Google/MIT Deep learning textbook.

Games on the nRich website.

Nim variant based on a pentagonal graph.

nRich index of Nim variants.

Mulinello Quadrupio 5 in a row variant from Italy.

Sowing (Mancala) Games

Mancala is an example of a large class of srategy games originating in Africa. The applet below plays one of the more popular variants. Mancala is a very simple game to learn but has great strategic depths.

Mancala Applet

Piet Hein's Game of Hex

The aim of the game is for black to connect the top edge of the board to the bottom edge before white connects the right edge to the left. Players take it in turns. You can play on any vacant hex. There always has to be a winner and, with correct strategy, the first player should always win. Moves cannot be undone and your hexes must, eventually, form a continuous line from one edge to the other.
NB 7x7 and 8x8 boards have been solved completely see University of Alberta links below.

Wiki entry for Hex

Sensei Hex website Lots of useful information

For heavy duty academic stuff on hex go to either the Sourceforge download or theUniversity of Alberta computer games project.

Hexy - hex playing program. Hex playing exe file (You need to scan it before you run it! You have been warned.) and four papers on hex strategy by Vadim Anshelevich.

Last updated 8th June 2020