How to Play the Game of Abalone
The equipment needed to recreate Abalone is pretty minimalistic . Basically , all it takes is a hexangular ( six - sided ) board with 61 circular blank space , and 28 marble , half in black and half in white [ root : Abalone ] . The rules are so simple that Foxmind , the game ’s current manufacturer , shoot a line that " they can belearned by almost anyone within a minute of arc or two " [ source : Foxmind.com ] .
In an informal game , you’re able to start out with the marbles arranged however you require on polar sides of the board . But in tournament romp , players begin by place their marbles in what is have intercourse as the " Belgian daisy " shape . In that apparatus , each actor ’s marble are arrange in a hexagon , with the black marbles in the odd - hand corner and the white 1 on the correct [ source : Boardability.com ] .
After that , the players take alternate turns . Each participant can move either a unmarried marble or a tower of marbles ( that is , two or three marble of the same color that are adjacent and arranged in a straight telephone circuit ) one infinite at a sentence . Marbles can be moved either forward or diagonally in any management . The one exception is that in a " side - footprint " move , in which marbles are moved sideway into contiguous free blank space , they can not be used to fight an opposite ’s individual marble or column [ source : Abalone ] . The sidestep move is also known as a " broadside " [ source : Boardability.com ] .
Essentially , you win the game by pushing the other player ’s marbles back , sending them to untenanted spaces and finally off the board all to the lip , where they ’re no longer in play . The trick , though , is that a single marble ca n’t push an opposition ’s marble . To do that , you need numerical superiority , a situation called a " sumito . " In that state of affairs , a role player ’s pillar faces a lesser number of the opposer ’s marbles , giving him or her reward . A role player can then practice a column of three black or white marbles to push one or two of the opponent ’s marbles one space , or a column of two to force one of an antagonist ’s marbles back a blank . If the opposite has a pillar of three marble , it ca n’t be push at all , even if a participant has four marbles in a row [ source : Abalone ] .
That ’s pretty much it , except for local magnetic declination that player may come up with on their own . Seems simple , right ? But Abalone can also be devilishly complex , as we ’ll explicate in the next surgical incision .
