Author: Theo van der Storm
Date: 11:59:15 06/09/05
Go up one level in this thread
On June 08, 2005 at 21:13:55, Joshua Shriver wrote:
>While looking at the pics I was interested in the game "Einstein würfelt nicht".
>Anyone here know more about it; in English?
>
>I came across a couple sites, and even a wikipedia entry but it's all in German.
>
>-Joshua Shriver
Now that you're asking: No problem.
Here my own English text with the rules:
Rules of "Einstein Würfelt Nicht"
Two players, X and Y, move in turn. X starts. Passing is not allowed. Each
player has 6 stones in the beginning, with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The
square board has size 5 by 5. Player X starts with all his stones in the 6
squares of the upper left, player Y in the lower right. Each player is free to
select the arrangement of his stones on the six starting squares unless a
computer program is used to produce a completely random starting position on
these squares. While doing this initial arrangement one is not allowed to see
the opponent’s arrangement.
Example starting position with coordinates:
5 x1 x6 x3 -- --
4 x5 x2 -- -- --
3 x4 -- -- -- y2
2 -- -- -- y3 y1
1 -- -- y4 y6 y5
a b c d e
A move consists of two parts:
1. rolling dice
2. pushing a playable stone one square forward
A player has to move with the stone that has the number he just rolled. When
this stone is no longer on the board, he has to move with the next-larger number
he still has or with the next-smaller number he still has. Example: X still has
stones 1, 2 and 5. Now he rolls a "4". So he is allowed to push either the 2 or
the 5. It does not matter that the 5 is nearer to the 4 than the 2!
When a player has only one stone, he does not role the dice, hence the title of
the game, which translates literally as "One stone doesn't role dice." or
interpreted further: "A single stone needn't role dice."
Usually a playable stone has three possible moves:
X can play one step down, to the right or one step to the lower-right.
Y can play one step up, to the left or one step to the upper-left.
Any stone in the destination square is captured, so a move may be a simple move,
a capture or a self-capture.
The game can end in two ways:
1. A player wins when he reaches the goal meaning
one of his stones reaches the corner square of the opponent.
2. A player without stones has lost.
Evidently a stone cannot jump off the board, so it has only one move when it is
on the same line or row as the goal.
IMHO it's an addictive, simple to learn complex game.
Still, due to the luck factor, it's very hard for a strong player to win 2/3 of
the games against weaker players like Ingo Althöfer, who is its brilliant
inventor. The game is on-line at Inetplay, where you can get a free subscription
to play.
http://www.inetplay.de/
Theo van der Storm
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