Sprouts game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouts_(game)

by Rexxar • 18 years ago

64 16 18 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

I really like the brussel sprout variation as the shape makes the rules more visually intuitive. i'm going to introduce this to my friends.

abstractbill• 18 years ago

... the players cannot affect the result by their play ... a game starting with an odd number of crosses will be a first player win, while a game starting with an even number will be a second player win regardless of the moves.

That makes the brussel variation a lot less interesting I think.

benjamincanfly• 18 years ago

By enumerating all possible moves, one can show that the first player can always win in normal-play games starting with n = 3, 4, or 5 spots. The second player wins when n = 0, 1, 2, or 6.

Am I missing something, or is the outcome of every sprouts games predetermined?

avinashv• 18 years ago

I've been playing this game over the summer on long train/plane journeys--it's brilliant. I incidentally stumbled across it on Wikipedia, too.

Darmani• 18 years ago

At Canada/USA Mathcamp last summer, a few kids found the Nim reduction for Brussel Sprouts for their project. Shame I don't remember it, though.

dfranke• 18 years ago

Hey, another mathcamper on news.yc. '02/'03 alum here.

jacobolus2• 18 years ago

Winning Ways and On Numbers and Games are both excellent. Math is fun!

Angostura• 18 years ago

I remember playing this as a kid about 35 years ago. It was described in a book called The Indoor Games boo, published in the UK. The same book also introduced me to the rather fun 'Nine Mens Morris' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Men's_Morris

pwk• 18 years ago

I played Nine Mens Morris with my grandmother when I was growing up (we called it "Mühle"). She never gave me an inch just because I was a kid, and I still remember with great vividness the first time I ever beat her.

A few years ago I wrote a java applet that plays the game. It's buggy and unpolished, but usable.

http://pi-guy.net/games/muehle/

bumbledraven• 18 years ago

The 7th annual tournament of the World Game Of Sprouts Association is coming up! http://www.geocities.com/chessdp/trny2008.htm

This is your chance to battle four-time world champion Roman Khorkov for first place. http://www.geocities.com/chessdp/champions.htm

Sprouts game

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