QUAX 

Copyright (c) 2000 Bill Taylor

QUAX is a two player strategy game played on any square board. The author suggests 11x11 (as usual, smaller is more tactical, larger more strategic). 

 
PIE RULE - One player drops one stone on the board. The other chooses who starts.
MOVE - On each turn, each player must do one of the following actions:
Drop a stone into an empty cell.
Connect two friendly stones diagonally adjacent, if it does not cross another connection.
GOAL - Wins the player that connect his to two opposite edges (horizontal for Black, vertical for Red).
 
A connecting example

The black stones are connected. The red stones cannot be connected directly.

Race to connections

If it's Black turn he wins by playing at cell [1]. If it's Red he must play at [1] and have a powerful threat to win at cell a10, where Black must drop a stone to continue his attack.

Quax is already available on Richard Rognlie's email server.

Some words from the author:

The main diagonal lines have a similar role to the critical lines in TwixT.

One tactic has become clear:

A Tesuji

Black dropped the marked stone. There's nothing Red can do about it. Black is sure to be able to slide down one side or other, and the 2-chain prevents any double-cut moves.

Play between the author & page-owner suggests a lot of early moves are best played on the "same-coloured" cells

I'm surprised no-one else seems to have thought of Quax before! I guess they just didn't think of a "diagonal crossing" as being a move; even though it is identical to play on the Archimedean 8/4/4 board:

Connection games seem to be getting names ending with X, (Hex, TwixT), we thought that "Quadrangular Hex" could be usefully shortened to "Quax", which is also the noise made by the winner as he puts in the killing move! :-)

A small puzzle (from Bill Taylor) solution

Black started. Who wins?

 
A sample game

d3 f5, f8 h8, g6 f7, g3 f3, f2 e2, e3 e2f3, f4 g4, f4g3 h3, g5 f5g4, h4 g4h3, g7 e8, Black resigns

check the cells coordinates by pointing the mouse over them!


Two other games: 
d3 e6, c6 c8, h6 h8, f7 f9, e9 e8, d8 g9, c7 e10, c9 d9, c9d8 c4, d5 Red resigns
c3 e5, f3 h3, g5 i6, h4 i4, i9 g7, f8 g9, g8 h8, h7 i7 Black resigns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solution

Black wins! Red best move is at [1]. There is no way to stop the Black chain (move 5 is a White connection between [1] and [3]).