A hex Go variant in search of a name (and players)

Go Variants
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Hi all! I’ve been building a Go variant played on a hexagonal board. Same rules you already know, but the geometry changes the game: there is no ko (immediate ko can’t arise on a hex grid) and there are no ladders. It’s free and browser-based, with live clocks, and no account needed.

Right now the game goes by “Badux”, but that’s a working title. I’m choosing the permanent name and would love your input - a quick anonymous vote, about a dozen taps, no signup:

If you visit and nobody’s around, the bots are always up for a game. The best time to find humans is Community Game Night, every Thursday at 8 PM Eastern (midnight UTC): show up, post an open invite in the lobby, and play as long as you like. Between games we hang out in Discord:

The site is https://baduxgo.com. Solo project, still rough in places - wide open to feedback.

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Why would you change Badux? Badux sounds awesome.

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Thanks! you’re not the first person to ask that. I am not opposed to the idea. There are two problems I have with the name “badux”:

  1. There are multiple plausible pronunciations - mainly whether the U sound is long or short (as in flute or put, respectively) - which is confusing.
  2. It spells out “bad UX.” UX is a standard acronym for “User Experience,” which describes how a user feels using an application. So an application with bad UX is no good.

Neither one is a deal-breaker, but both of them are bothersome, at least to me. Maybe I am just overly sensitive to how bad the UX on my site is. It used to be a lot worse!

I probably should have included Badux Go in the survey too…

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r/baduk occasionally gets lost redditors thinking it means bad UK.

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Hexago

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Hexago is sort of taken.

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Ah, it is hexagone.

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I played this

a few times against different people at iggamecenter, using that
site’s Sandbox rather than an implementation of specifically this
and
somewhat over a dozen times more recently
against the same other person, using text boards

.
​
​
My preferred Board Size is ​ 8x8x8 , ​ due to the combination of

If one player gets the whole 2nd line and the other player gets the whole 3rd line,
then on 7x7x7 the edges player wins, whereas on 8x8x8 the center player wins.
with
8x8x8 happens to have exactly as many intersections as a 13x13 square board. ​ :slight_smile:

.

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Hey that’s so cool! Yeah I choose my board sizes to try to line up with Go’s 9x9, 11x11, and 19x19. I have a little chart near the top of this page:

I am feeling like 3rd and 4th line openings are still the best, even though it is easier for the opponent to live underneath than it is in Go.

Anyway invite your friends to come play over here some time.

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I slightly reduced a game situation, to get a simple tsume-hexgo:

     -------------
    / - - - - # -
   / - # O - O # -
  / - O O - O # -    White to move
 / # - - O - # -     (White is Os)
/ - # # # # # -
   - - - - - -
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Nice!

I recreated your position in the board canvas, which you can find from the top left menu.

image
image532×927 171 KB

Seems like K15 guarantees two eyes. but I didn’t work it out carefully.

I saved this board position as an SGF, which you can load into the board canvas:

White-to-Play.sgf (142 Bytes)

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Looks like I12 will live too, but gives you one point less in territory as black’s push in from K15 does some damage.

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K15 is the solution. ​ i12 lives too, but with 2 fewer points, rather than just 1 fewer point.

Badux Go is the game I got this from: ​ In it, White didn’t find either way of living.

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Maybe it should say otherwise?

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Hi, have you though about the dimensions for a physical board? Would love to have one as a novelty board for my club.

I have a spreadsheet for designing 19x19 boards. I might check if I can do some trigonometry and make a modified formula that works for hex boards.

Oh geez, the lines are going to be a nightmare to draw, if I do it on a square board. But cutting a hexagonal board will also be hard. Hmmm.