New Havannah bot enters Little Golem

Lajkonik, an improved version of the Havannah bot that placed third at the computer olympiad in Kanazawa last year, has been playing on LG for two days. So far, its balance against Ring of Fire is 11:2, against Wanderer 3:3, and against Castro 0:3 so I estimate its rating at 1600-1650.

You are welcome to challenge Lajkonik, for the time being on size 5 board only. I am especially looking forward to lost games, as there is always something to learn from them. Thanks to Christian for accepting the challenge in this game and giving Lajkonik a good lesson.

Marcin Ciura

nice

Cool. I just sent it an invite.

Omar

He does like corners, doesn't he?

The new bot I mean with "he". It's a "he", right?

Yes, he's a man. He has a beard. He liked corners even more in Kanazawa. I've been trying to unteach him this habit since then.

Corners are very strong on small boards... On size 3 the corner is the only winning move. On size 4 the corner is the easiest move to solve by a large margin. I'm guessing the corner is also the easiest to solve on size 5.

Sure, one corner is fine. Two are OK. But three corners mean neglecting the center. I believe that's more or less what ypercube meant.

Exactly. Like this game 1304581, where in 3 moves, he secured 3 corners :)