Sowing (game)
From Wikimanqala
Sowing
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| © 1994, John Horton Conway |
| England |
| Published rules |
| Used in maths research |
| Shared pits |
| Single lap |
| n holes per row |
| One row |
Sowing was invented by the English mathematician John Horton Conway who described the game in 1994 at an international workshop on combinatorial game theory hosted by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley, California. The game is a single-lap, one rank mancala game.
Jeff Erickson suggested in 1996 to reverse the rules and called this game reaping. Other variants are partisan sowing and two-dimensional sowing.
Contents |
Rules
Any board size and number of seeds can be used. A 1x24 board with three seeds initially in each pot might be a good size if played by humans.
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| Suggested initial position |
Left plays from left to right, while Right plays from right to left.
The contents of a pot can only be distributed, if there are enough pots for each seed in the direction of play and if the last seed goes into a non-empty pot.
The last player who is able to make a legal move wins.
Variant: The first player who has no legal move wins ("misère-sowing").
Strategy
The players try to create board positions which permits them to move while their opponent cant. The player with the larger reserve of moves will eventually win the game.
References
- Erickson, J.
- Sowing Games. In: Nowakowski, R. J. (Ed.). Games of No Chance (Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Publications 29). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (England) 1996, 287-297.
- Guy, R. K.
- Unsolved Problems in Combinatorial Games. In: Nowakowski, R. J. (Ed.). Games of No Chance (Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Publications 29). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (England) 1996, 486.
External links
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