cant move

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=757813

Yellow has violated an anti-killjoy rule (not enforced by the LG software): http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=757813&nmove=15.

And it gets worse: http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=757813&nmove=23.

Actually, not.

The anti-killjoy rule says that you can't make the ball unaccessible to your opponent without going out of bounds, which isn't the case here. And Red can indeed get out, by putting his own player out of bounds.

What Yellow does seems perfectly legitimate defensive strategy to me.

Oh, I get it. The ball isn't separated from all Red players, just from four of them.

If Red takes his one player out of the partition, Yellow would be morally obligated to open up his partition or kick the ball out of the partitioned area. Has anyone verified that the software indeed does not enforce this obligation?

It *does* enforce this obligation.

Well, that's good to know. LG's StreetSoccer rules have said "You may not around the ball so that the opponent can not reach the ball. This rule is not implemented." since the first time I read them.

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1223365&nmove=16 is a similar situation, but in this case Yellow can't step out of bounds because his first step would have to be to one of the four central out-of-bounds cells behind the goal, and those cells are forbidden to all players. On a roll of 1, 3 or 5, Yellow could exchange places with the ball (as Spajki did on his move 24), and then step out of bounds on his next move, but there's no guarantee that Yellow will ever roll a 1, 3 or 5.

Of course, if I've misunderstood or misdescribed the situation, someone will undoubtedly post a polite correction.

I don't think the four cells behind the goal is forbidden for the players? Not sure, though, but you could try and find out.

Those spaces may be illegal to end on, but they can be passed through.

The 4 cells behind the goal never show up as brown target cells when moving a player, so they must not be legal to stop on. I'll take Mr. Pedlow's word that it's legal to move through them. But running behind the goal requires a roll of 5 or 6, which might never happen.

Here's another question. What happens in StreetSoccer when the coach has no legal moves at all? That can happen in at least three ways. Let's make Red the player who has no legal move.

A. Red moves all five players into a corner (one in the inbounds corner square, three out of bounds next to the first one, and one more out of bounds along the sideline). Three Yellow players block them. On a roll of 1 or 2, Red has no legal move.

B. Five Red players have blocked a Yellow player and the ball, as in http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1223365&nmove=16, but with the fifth Red player in the out of bounds cell making 4 Red players in a row instead of just 3. Now Yellow rolls something and moves his trapped player to an out-of-bounds cell. Red is then obligated to untrap the ball. Red's only legal moves are those that allow a path from an inbounds Yellow player to the ball, but if Red rolls a 1 there are no such moves.

C. Yellow occupies the four cells consisting of Red's penalty area (the two cells in front of the two goalie-only cells) and the two cells on either side of them, making a straight line of four Yellow players. Red has no players near his goal. If Yellow has just kicked a goal, and Red must kick off, the farthest Red can kick the ball is 3 cells. On a roll of 4, 5 or 6, Red has no legal kickoff move.

Correction for B: While Red would need to move a player at least two cells to open up the trap, Red can nevertheless kick the ball out of the trap on a roll of 1. Can someone find a situation with a different geometry in which Red is obligated to allow Yellow a path to the ball but can't do it?

There's another, funny situation that can arise: Place all players, red and yellow, on a straight line going from one goal to the other. place the ball right in front of the yellow goal. Have a player, NOT the yellow goalie, go there and kick the ball. That's a legal move, and the player will be moved straight forward to the next open spot - which now happens to be INSIDE red goal :-) See this game: http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=306615&nmove=17

That is totally weird. That game appears to have been an experiment between you and Jan. Was the player behind the goal frozen, or could he then move normally?

Have you also conducted an experiment to see what happens when a coach has no legal moves?

"Can someone find a situation with a different geometry in which Red is obligated to allow Yellow a path to the ball but can't do it?"

Easy: Let yellow run out of the field with all players, and the ball too far away from red to kick it outside.