Hi all

I noticed catchup7 has been added, many thanks to @Richard

Are there any plans to implement/add championship for this variant/size ?

I would love to play it. It might take a while to finish, but we do have hex19, go19 etc…

Thanks

I've been thinking about staging a big user tournament soon and calling in a lot of people from BGG and wherever else we can find them.

We did a few 2xRR user tournaments when Catchup was first implemented. Since hex7 is a longer game (but not insanely longer), I don't know if 2xRR makes a lot of sense.

I'm game for any Catchup at any size right now - really envious of the 37x37 games of Go.

Wow. Size 7 at first glance looks like infinite ;P

I will join tournament, but the thing I really dislike at LG user tournaments that participants split into groups to 5-7 players if total amount is more than 14 players. And there is big difference of enjoyment when you play against 4-5 opponennts or against 10+.

@Andrey championship groups have usually 9+ players each.

Last (26) Catchup groups have 9 (1st division) and 11, 12 players (2nd division) respectively.

Ah, you were talking about User tournaments.

Right, that depends on the number players.

I see single groups when the number is 14 or less and 3 groups when it's 21 players.

Andrey, the overwhelming majority of my hex7 games have been 22-23 turns each. The turns are a lot less

It's still one of the shortest games on the site, and most turns aren't really as thinky - a lot more strategy and theory in the early game, where hex5 is almost instantly tactical (unless you're patterning the whole board).

^ " The turns are a lot less than most other games on the site.”

One of the fist thing I thought about catchup7 will it bring strategy to the game. Could be i think and hope. It could be possible to plan some separate groups in different areas of board trying to connect some of them.

I've recently mathed out some territory vs. influence analysis for hex boards (as is done with Go, especially on the 19x19 board), with an eye towards balancing Catchup's formation strategies. It's a lofty goal.

The reason I asked for hex7 instead of hex6 was primarily because there is parity between the second and third lines (61 spaces inside, 66 spaces outside).

My next step up is probably hex9 (217 cells) - there's parity along the third line (91 inside, 90 outside, 36 neutral).

My suspicion is that the game will find strategic balance with moderately bigger board (something in the 180-250 cell range), but the math suggests that it could also be a hex17.5 board (867 cells). We'll see!