NONET

Copyright (c) 2004 L. Lynn Smith

This game is played on the following board:

 

BALANCED BOARD - The board is balanced if every pair of adjacent or opposing cells have the same number of stones. There are four corner cells, four flank cells and one center cell. Corner and flank cells are not adjacent between themselves. The center cell is not adjacent to any cell. TURN -  On each turn, each player must drop one to nine stones in any cell, provided that the cell cannot have more than nine stones. GOAL - Loses the player who makes a balanced board.

The balanced concept may be hard to grasp. Check if any two pairs of corner cells share the same number. Then check the same for any two pairs flank cells. An example from the author: For example, if two opposing corner cells each contain five Seeds, the other two corner cells each contain three Seeds, two adjacent flanking cells each contain one Seed and the remaining two flanking cells are empty, the field is "balanced" and the player who placed last has lost the game. "Balance" can also be determined by pairs of adjacent corner cells and pairs of opposing flanking cells.

A balanced board [In the diagrams, a dotted stone represents five stones] You can check that in the corner cells there are a pair with nine stones and a pair with four stones. In the flank cells, there are a pair with nine stones and a pair with zero stones. So, the position is balanced and the last player lost the game.

Some words from the author: The center cell is important, as it allows the placement of Seeds and effectively creates a possible passing move. Of course, a player would be foolish to place anything in this cell with an empty field since the remaining field would then be "in balance" with equally empty cells. And by filling this center cell with nine Seeds, the player has removed the passing option for the remainder of the game.

There is a ZRF to play NoNet with Zillions.