Stacks Of Coins/ Discussion

Robert Pauli: Even (seemingly) simple games deserve rules without ambiguties, Charles. So, before someone starts a rule debate by taking more than one coin in his turn (takes a pile of coins), how about:

...alternately take one of the top coins,...

Charles Don't understand - you do take one whole pile.

BobMcGuigan: The analogy with all-gote go endgames is that the number of coins in a pile equals the point value of the endgame move. Right, Charles?

Charles Sure. You can make the coins be of different values, instead of having stacks. But the latter would seem to be more graphic. And you can say, lining up the stacks by size to get a histogram, that the steps down in size are the key quantities in the theory.

As part of (the much deeper) atomic weight theory, one can worry about the type of stack in which one player is able to take the top coin only, while the other can only remove the whole stack. But that game should be played under the Nim?-style ending condition typical of CGT: last to have a play wins. You aren't looking at the accumulated coins for each side.

Robert Pauli:
If you - ignoring that atomic stuff - really mean that each player takes one whole stack at his turn, Charles, then how about

...alternately take a stack,...

(a rather trivial game)

However, I came here from EquivalentGameToGo, quote (my format):

The first stack is (top to bottom): 25 p., 10 p., 5 p., 1 p., 1 p.
The Second stack is:                10 p.,  5 p., 5 p., 1 p.
The third stack is                  25 p., 10 p., 1 p., 1 p.

Looks pretty much in my direction - covered coins being follow-up's (and coin rims should identify values for total information).

I certainly would prefer this to be the Stacks Of Coins Game.

Charles It's a more realistic endgame model, in that a play leaves a follow-up play. But sometimes you need to give people the absolutely basic model of gote plays.

Robert Pauli:
You're giving them confusion, Charles.

"Stacks of coins" - anybody read this slowly and tell me what he imagines. Does he assume each stack to be made of one coin? Of course not. Does he assume all coins to be of the same value? Of course not.

Rich: For what it's worth, I certainly did, and found the original description perfectly adequate to describe Charles' point.

"Stacks on a table" - please "take a pile". Really wonder what will happen. Maybe he'll take all stacks at once for a very nice pile, maybe she'll be a little shy and just take some upper part of a single stack.

"One stack on its own is entirely trivial." Come on, several stacks as well - if whole stacks are at our disposal.

"It also illustrates miai." Come on, you need to know absolutely nothing about symmetry to play coins on a table - to give it a name that fits - just grab one of the highest valued coins.

Difficulty = Advanced? Well, maybe :-)

Charles Robert, I find you a bit of a pedant, really. You are also missing the point. Simple stacks is enough to show that you don't always double deiri for reverse sente. Which has puzzled many people.

Robert Pauli:
Charles, you bet I am - sorry.

It most likely shows in two cases:

• when I don't understand
• when I understand, but face the sit-it-out strategy

You managed to trigger both. ;-)

For the benefit of others let me edit the top to make things clear. Hope you can bear it. My part of the compromise is seeing a broad term being wasted for a special (trivial) case of its meaning. OK?

Charles Robert, please edit as you see fit.