Havannah Tutor | About Rules Basic Tactics Games Read Me |
A very basic property of Havannah is this: of all games that can end in a draw, it must have the smallest margin. It's easy to construct a drawn position, but in twenty years of play, there are no recorded draws. There are two immediate consequences:
The second property was not obvious in the first year of the game's existence, when it was extensively played at the University of Twente and its games club 'Fanatic': it took Roelof Moll, a local Chess player who had played only for a few weeks, to point it out. He started winning consistently by following his Chess instinct and taking the center. He didn't care for speed, he cared for safety. His reasoning was that it doesn't matter how 'fast' a group threatens to connect, if it's dead. Cutting the opponent's groups from above (that is: from the center) limiting their options to at most two sides and a corner, he proved that all our previous strategies were in dire need of reconsideration. From his contribution came the concepts of snake strategy, with the emphasis on speed, and spider strategy, with the emphasis on safety. It gave rise to the safety versus speed dilemma, illustrated here in a nutshell, but actually pervading Havannah in all strategical and tactical aspects. Appoaching its strategical implications would result in actual opening theory, which is too immense a subject matter to be part of this tutor.
The main strategic goal in Havannah is is the establishment of a frame, a connection aiming at a ring, bridge or fork, that, though still incomplete, cannot be broken by the opponent. The last property is essential. With safety taken care of, it gives rise to two simple strategic truths:
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