WYPS line variant

I implement a new variant. Rules:

- pool and rack has 7 letters

- word can be created only in line

- all used letters are flipped to player's color

- game is won, when you connect all sides, and opponent on move is not able break off it.

positive:

- more strategy

- well playable on small boards too

- simpler rules

negative:

- length of words is shorter than in game with old WYPS rules

Anyone tried it?

I don't see the possibilty at the moment

never mind, I see it now

I'm willing to try. I'll start a tournament for TOMORROW.

The tournament is unrated; I thought we want to give it a try first. It would affect your WYPS rating; there is only one!

Are there some strange rules that I don't know about? In my game 1246552 against Aganju the "Send move" button never appears, not even for simple words like "nab", "drab", "bard" and "fir". The list of moves shows Aganju's most recent word as "KITTENS+". Is there some significance to the plus sign?

The rules URL pointed to by Main Menu -> Tournaments -> WYPS -> RULES, "http://www.wyps.info/rules", is a bad link. There are WYPS rules at http://www.wyps.info/wyps/ but they only cover the standard game, not this variant.

Wait, don't answer that! (Well, the part about the bad link is true.)

I was overlooking "and opponent on move is not able break off it".

Here are some tactics (according to my limited understanding up to now):

1. of course, always break the connection. That should go without saying.

2. don't make words that can be extended; use the whole line (for example, if you play ABCDEF, and *ABCDEF is a word, your opponent can flipped ALL your tiles). Watch for plural S. I try to play only complete lines - if I find only a shorter word, go into another row.

3. plan a bit ahead - the letters you leave this time will be in your list next time. So if you use all your vowels, and leave QKJW sitting, guess what you are stuck with next round.

4. you want to be the last one making a move = filling the last spot (this *wins*, as the opponent 'cannot break your connection'); this is very powerful, I won both games against Richard that way

those alone are not good enough to win, though. I just learned.

Since when was "to" taken out of the dictionary? I'm not being allowed to play it in one of my games?!?!?

A cell is safe if the three lines that pass through it are all filled.

A cell is also safe if the empty cells in the three lines that pass through it can't have any words formed that include the cell in question.

And a cell is also safe when there are words that include it and at least one empty cell on one of the three lines if the opponent does not have the letters needed to form any such words.

Ah, *more* than mere *ability* to break a '+' position is important. It's actually breaking it that's important. If it's a '+', then if you can break it, you must break it.

well not breaking it would be equivalent to resigning, and there is a separate button for that. Actually, it avoids that you miss it accidentally, which can be good and bad.

But it is consistent with many other games that don't allow (immediately) losing moves, like Chess, Shogi. But others do allow it - 4-in-a-row - I wish it would warn me that I give it away, I do that so often...

And you cannot shoot into your own goal in StreetSoccer, I tried.

In one of my games I got to a point where I'm absolutely stuck. I know there is a word somewhere, but I have tried dozens of words and nothing would work. I think this may happen quite often. Would it be possible to make some kind of hint/help for such situations?

I'm talking about the game here:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1246595

The same happened here:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1246594

I've just started to wonder - is it possible that there is no move and I just have to resign? Or is that done automatically?

@somar96: What's happening in our game (1246595) is the same thing that I noted above and then FatPhil noted above. When your opponent has made a winning path (connecting all three sides), the only legal words are ones that break that path. In your case, the only such words would be ones that include either the S at the right of the second east-west row from the bottom, or the A and the I in the second southwest-northeast row from the left. SISAL (which is a word at dictionary.com; not sure if it's in SOWPODS or whatever Richard is using lately) would do it. (But if you make SISAL, I intend to reestablish the path to the lower edge with OLD.)

AFAIK, when you can't break the opponent's win, the only alternatives are to resign or time out.

@somar96: For game 1246594 you can only break the winning path with a word xLETCM or a word that contains xNEEE (or one of those backwards). I suspect there are no such words.

where x is one of A I T H R C Z.

so I should resign?

I'd rather not make a comment about a game in progress, in particular as I'm in the same league as the participants. But advice that often works when there are so few possibilities is to just use trial and error until a word gets accepted.

However, that would indeed be fruitless in 1246594, so I think resignation is your only option. I can't say I like that as a way of ending the game. Perhaps just having a 'pass' option, which would almost certainly lead to the game ending even more convincingly, would be a more diplomatic approach?

Well making a comment about a game in progress won't help much if I'm still going to resign :)

Monthly Cup is now played as line variant size 10.

I don't think it will change much ;)

To clarify the MC is the line variant size 10?

I like this variant but I think it's a bit too static, and by the way it is more cheatable. Being these variants so different, I'd like very much to be able to choose which one to play in the mc.

The order in which rack letters will be used is really important and not obvious.

In game 1248432 move 17, I was expecting playing "mu" (when you don't know the answer always answer mu) would leave Richard with no vowel, but in fact he got an 'e' and could answer "emu" with a clear win !

There should be an arrow or at least a rule somewhere specifying this order.

Otherwise, very interesting game, with no clear strategy.

@Carroll: The pool in the upper left is replaced with the topmost letters from those in the upper right.

@Carroll: I mean to say, the letters that are taken out of the pool in the upper left are replaced with the topmost letters from the upper right.

Seemingly in zig-zag order:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

use the source, luke

?? does that mean black gets white letters, and white gets black letters? that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm quite sure that the seven letters I see on the right is my opponents seven, and my seven are on the left. The new letter I find next move are different than what my opponent had (or used), and the letters he uses are matching what I saw on the right before his move.

So it looks to me like left seven and right seven are independent, player specific pools, which get refilled with outside random letters.

Or were you talking about the standard variant? and not the new one?

@Aganju: Only the letters in the upper left may be placed on the board. Their color is the color of the player whose turn it is. The letters in the upper right are the opposite color (to remind the player that he can't place them on the board). At the end of the turn, the letters in the upper left that have not been placed on the board remain in the upper left, and one or more of the topmost letters from the upper right move to the upper left to replace the one or more letters that were placed on the board.

AFAIK, all Wyps variants work this way (with digits rather than letters for the numeric variant).

That might explain why I'm losing all the time - I thought (for this variant) the upper right are my opponents letters.

I will try what FatPhil tried:

  1

2

  3

4

  5

6

  7

I hope this works. I'm temporarily not a member and I won't be able to erase it.

Wow I had no idea about how this worked, I was keeping an "s" back in a game on the assumption got to play it next turn and I found it had gone. I had assumed it was that it was like scrabble and each player had a rack that got replenished from a pool!

Wow I had no idea about how this worked, I was keeping an "s" back in a game on the assumption got to play it next turn and I found it had gone. I had assumed it was that it was like scrabble and each player had a rack that got replenished from a pool!

Thank you all for your answers! And congrats to MarleysGhost for his achievement!

I'm glad it helped other players too for which it was not obvious!

For getting a picture to make it even clearer :

[game;id:1248432;move:17]

I'm playing the ascending line variant and I don't get the + sign. When there's a + sign, I need to use at least one of my opponents tiles and when's there's no + sign, I can start a line anywhere I want?

And what makes the + sign appear?

The + sign means all three sides are connected. If the next player doesn't break the connection he/she loses the game.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!

i just wondered why all my good ides were refused. This helps. Well, for losing the game at least. thx for calrifying

i'm a real fan ow classic rules

absolutely not this one :-(

sorry

I've given the line version a chance, and while it's not bad, I don't think it compares at all to the original rules. It would be great to have both available.

bump

i also really miss old-school wyps. the thrill of the sudden connection/win! i'd just like it to be available here again.