Thomlex - Board Games

Go

bill — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:14:00 -0500

Go is one of my favorite board games. It's very well-known in China, Japan and Korea, but not as much so in the west.

One of the things that I find particularly appealing about it is that the rules are extremely simple (you can learn to play in a half-hour), yet the number of possible positions is enormous, astronomical compared to chess for example. As a result, even though there are computers that have beat the world's best chess players, a computer program has not yet been written that can beat even a mediocre professional go player.

Also, it has a very simple handicapping system, such that a very advanced player can play a beginner and if the handicap is set up fairly, you'd expect each to win half the games played. My six year old son and I play this way, and it's a lot of fun because we're evenly matched.

(This image is an art piece I made called (see if you can guess...) "Go").

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Board Game with Lasers

bill — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 19:28:00 -0500

Each player moves one of his pieces, then fires his (real) laser. Laser bounces among mirrored surfaces, and if a piece with a non-mirrored surface is struck, it's removed from the game. Win by eliminating the other players Pharoah. Interesting concept.

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Visualized Computer Chess

bill — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 01:18:00 -0500

Play chess against the computer and see what the computer's thinking. See waves of influence between turns, and while the computer is thinking, see which moves the computer is pondering (as pictured here).

It takes forever to make moves and it isn't a very good player (it doesn't know any openings for one thing, and doesn't seem to understand basic development concepts), but this is by design so that every move is "thought through" so you can see the thinking visuals.

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