Game: Shacru

Thread: Manchester Open Shacru Tournament Saturdays 12th July 2008

Pacruman — 2008-07-12T16:09:07+00:00

In what turned out to be a struggle between two of the people who have most experience of the game, inventor Mike Wellman won over 5 rounds against Danny Flowers with margins varying from 2 to 7. Mike put his victory down to practising strategies on the beach on Tenerife last summer.

The games allowed 10 minutes per player but were generally over in between 10-14 minutes.

The games were the first ever played on the prototype 302x board - image of this board will be uploaded onto the BGG.

Thread: Manchester Open Shacru Tournament Saturdays 12th July 2008

Pacruman — 2008-07-08T07:32:03+00:00

Held in the unusual venue of Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station (UK) on the balcony.

More details via the Pacru website.

Thread: 2nd Shacru World Championship MSO 12 London August 2008

Pacruman — 2008-05-04T17:23:17+00:00

The 2nd Shacru World Championship will be held at MS0 12. The venue is Royal Horticultural Halls, 80 Vincent Square, (Westminster) London SW1P 2PE. The dates of MSO 12 are 15th August to 25th August. The Shacru events are very likely to be on the last weekend. As well as the World Championship where games are timed at 15 minutes per player there is likely to be an Shacru blitz event timed at 7 minutes per player. The first World Championship was won by David M Pearce who also won the "Pentamind" (AKA "best game player") award at the MSO.

More information on MSO site (not currently updated) http://www.msoworld.com or Pacru site http://www.pacru.com

Thread: 1st Shacru World Championships (at MSO11 UK)

Pacruman — 2007-09-15T14:27:54+00:00

The Shacru Championships had six entrants and 5 rounds were played in which each player played every other once. Players had 15 minutes each but none of the games were decided by the clock, though in a few games one of the players was into their last 3 minutes. The vast majority of games were over in between 15 and 20 minutes. Players received 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw.

The tournament was won by David M Pearce who won three matches and drew one (the only drawn game of the tournament), that match being against Bijan Mehdinejad who came in second place. Bijan only lost to Martyn Hamer who himself came in third place. First, second and third places were decided on the final round of matches. One junior entered the tournament and recorded one win, and acquired at least 32 fields in all games he played.

As the designer of the game, I was delighted to find that there were games players with a wide range of experience of different abstract games who found that the game strategy was more complex than might appear from the simplicity of the game rules and the apparent limitations in the mobility of the chevrons. The vast majority of games were not settled till near the actual end and none of the games ended up with a player resigning.

Appendix for those who like figures.

The average (mean) margin of fields (markers) between winner and loser across the non-drawn matches was nearly 11. Only in one match was the margin less than 6, and in that case the margin was still 3. This was something of a surprise, the explanation perhaps being that at this level of play the victors were generally managing to successfully block their opponents progress several turns prior to the end of the game and so secure for themselves a section of territories that they could then capture at leisure at the very end of the game. There was a mean average of nearly six fields still neutral at the end of the game, though this might have dropped to five if one of the players had not stopped when assured of victory at 42 fields. In the one game where the victor was placed in the bottom three and the winner in the top, the margin was still 9 fields.

There was also no discernable advantage to being the first player, whereas this had intuitively appeared to be a likelihood: however this is a small survey involving only 15 games.

Thread: Re: First Shacru World Championships

Pacruman — 2007-08-11T17:34:35+00:00

Prizes¨:
1st 50 pounds sterling
2nd 30 pounds
3rd 10 pounds

The Shacru competition will be held on the morning of Saturday August 25th.

The competition games, like Azacru and Pacru, will be played with clocks.

When Shacru is played without clocks a a game of Shacru ends only when neither player can make any moves which will advance their marker total (or when both players agree that that is the case, even if they are in fact mistaken).

When played with clocks the rule is that the game ends either as above or when both the players have stopped becuase they have either run out of time or become blocked: whichever condition occurs first.

In a timed competition an issue may seem to arise because one player may become completely blocked and the other player may then run out of time ... and at a point where the latter´s marker total is less than that of their opponent, although they clearly could catch up, or exceed their opponent if they were allowed to continue to play. In this case the clock rules and the marker count is taken at the point when both players can play no further - either because they have run out of clock time, or because even though they have clock time, they are blocked.

Since at the end of the game the last moves which gain a marker in Shacru may be preceded by many moves (sometimes around 20) over already-occupied squares it is importance to stress that these moves must be made move by move with the chevron being picked up and set down on each square separately - it is not enough to move to the final destination square(s) and then later demonstrate that the path of the moves was legitimate.

Thread: First Shacru World Championships

Pacruman — 2007-06-18T21:52:12+00:00

will be held at the 11th MSO (Mind Sports Olympiad) at Potters Bar north of London, England on the 2nd weekend of the event (provisionally on the Friday evening, but likely to be Saturday morning August 25th 2007.

This is also, I believe, the first Shacru public competition.

Image

jamesdavis — 2007-04-11T18:34:13+00:00

Game in Progress

Thread: Re: Divacru Varient

Pacruman — 2006-12-28T14:45:35+00:00

Hi Bob

It's AND (i.e. in addition to). So Divacru is a faster game than Shacru as regards marker/tile accumulation (since on a borderland change you are generally getting both a marker on the square you move onto, and a marker on one of the other neutral squares).

Regards

Mike

Thread: Re: Divacru Varient

bobm174 — 2006-12-28T05:03:00+00:00

Just so I am clear. If let's say you cross a borderland and there are 4 neutral tiles available as well as one you just moved onto, you can choose to place your marker either on the tile you just moved on to or one of these other 4 neutral tiles?

Or would you get to place your marker on the tile you just moved onto and then in addition be able to also place a marker on another one of these neutral tiles as well?

Thanks,

Bob

Thread: Re: Divacru Varient

Pacruman — 2006-12-27T13:56:00+00:00

Bob

Divacru is a variant of Lilacru. Lilacru is (now considered) a variant of Shacru which doesn't have the borderland twist. So no twist in Divacru.

With Divacru the standard (move onto neutral square, change to my colour) move-and-change rule applies. In *addiition* if you cross a border and there are neutral sqaures available in the borderland you have moved onto, then you can place your marker on anyone of those squares.

Hope that is clear enough. The name of the variant comes from the
"Mal Div es" - way back in 2002 when I was play testing Lilacru & Pacru I was staying in a house with a guy from the Maldive Islands (near India) who wanted to have the "borderland change" rule from Pacru available in Lilacru - so we play tested that variant for a while.

One word of advice - I now try, if I can, to explain only one game (i.e. either Shacru, Azacru or Pacru) at one time to new players, since it can get a little confusing .. and the only actual variant I tend to play now is Pashacru (if wanting to play Pacru with 3 or 4 players).

Cheers

Mike

Thread: Divacru Varient

bobm174 — 2006-12-22T18:55:50+00:00

I was online and read this varient. Looks interesting but I did have a question:

Where it says "Borderland change. When you move a piece so that it crosses a border and set your piece down in a different borderland (a border crossing) then you must replace one of the unoccupied neutral tiles in this new borderland (if there are any) with a tile of your colour"

I am confused about this. Does that mean that as in Shacru you place
your marker as usual when you cross the boarder but if you cross the border and your marker is already at the spot you arrive at then you
must place another one of your markers on an unnocupied neutral tile?

Also, do you get to twist the piece when you cross the boarderland another 45 degrees as in Shacru?

Bob