4 ms·

Unless I missed something recent, it is not known whether any player has a winning strategy (or a drawing strategy, for that matter). It would be quite the disc

• usrusr 4y ago
  It would be wild if it turned out that some of the 20 first moves led into a tree that included a perfect winning path for black while others were draw on perfection: "take it, if you can, I bet you can't"
  • Scarblac 4y ago
    With connect-4 it's like that: playing in the middle on the 1st move means the first player wins, playing adjacent to the middle means the game will be drawn, and starting further to the side means the second player wins (all assuming otherwise perfect play). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connect_Four#Mathematical_solution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connect_Four#Mathematical_solu...
    • usrusr 4y ago
      Plenty of forced moves in that game, where there is only one option to not lose immediately. I basically sacrificed the last years of school math to a 10x8 variation of that game, it was almost as if there were two competitions in parallel, who would win and who could call a game decided first. Declaring the other guy winner before he even knew was almost better than winning (but certainly not as good as declaring victory and then explaining why)
• KptMarchewa 4y ago
  Having a winning strategy for black seems impossible though; the discussion is whether white have it or is it a forced draw.
  • Someone 4y ago
    Why would that seem impossible? One could argue that white has to open up his defenses first, allowing black to pick the best response to that. In general, there’s no guarantee of first mover’s advantage. For example, Hexapawn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexapawn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexapawn) is a win for black on some boards (https://web.archive.org/web/20050330222720/http://www.chessvariants.org/small.dir/hexapawn.html https://web.archive.org/web/20050330222720/http://www.chessv...). Versions that are more complex than chess and are a win for black may exist.
    • SamReidHughes 4y ago
      White could start with a knight move. Unlike Hexapawn, in chess, white moving first provides an increase in optionality for white, and the board positions are not forcing white on some losing track, because white is free to "burn" a move with many pieces by taking 2 moves to get to the same place they could with 1 move. White can use two bishop moves, or a pawn push to the 3rd rank followed by the 4th rank, to turn around the initiative early in the game.
      • SamBam 4y ago
        That would give black two moves in a row, which is a different scenario, and might still be optimal for black.
        • SamReidHughes 4y ago
          Black doesn't know it's getting two moves in a row when it makes the first move. And on the second move, it can only take advantage if white's first move reduces white's optionality in a specific manner, e.g. by blocking another piece essential for response to a certain tactic, which by construction, would mean it wasn't really an opportunity to transpose the game to hand over the initiative.
          • SamBam 4y ago