World
Game
Of
Sprouts
Association
[2/4/2001 I found an apparent big mistake in my notes. My revisions are in square brackets.]
This week’s game will have to be another solitaire affair. We all need to get busy and play some real games, including myself! I “played” this game while watching “NYPD Blue” Tuesday night. 8+ Presently the opening I’m most interested in. 1(9)2 Left’s only hope. Left needs an odd number of survivors. 1(10)1[2,3] I have always been very reluctant to leave five original spots in a sphere by themselves, since the five spot configuration is unstable, but this move has promise. The sphere S(2) produces two survivors, so long as spot 10 is able to play into that sphere. If a trap forms in S(4), Right looks to have the advantage. In that case, spots 4 - 6 would likely produce two survivors. There would probably be four survivors in all. Since Left is to move here and there are now six cannibals which would not be involved in the trap, Left would lose the cannibal war. 4(11)10 Left creates double switches. Another reasonable try for Left is the pharisaic 4(11)5. If the sphere S(2) produces two survivors, then Left needs three rather than four survivors from the sphere S(4). 4(12)11 A waiting move. Sphere S(2) has one real waiting move. [I no longer believe that there is only one real waiting move in the sphere S(2). I think there are two. After 2(13)3, the sphere S(2) is still a switch. And then after 3(14)3 the sphere S(2) remains yet a switch.] The sphere S(4) will likely produce three or four survivors, depending upon how the hollow sphere H(4) is played. There is something very much like a trap in the position: the combination of the sphere S(2) and the hollow sphere H(4). Taking into account the one true waiting move [but there are two!] in the sphere S(2), if spots 5 through 8 routinely produce three survivors, Left will be forced to move to this “trap” [not!]. II Left resigns, probably [certainly] prematurely, but I just could not see a good move for him, and, besides, Sipowicz was getting in hot water with a deputy D.A. [What do you want to do, watch television or learn something?]