TwixT Strategy types

The aim is to discuss different strategy types of TwixT. I was often talking about aggressive and defensive, here I try to explain what I mean.

1. Aggressive:

Those players focus on making a connection. They try to place their stones, so that they actively can force a win.

2. Defensive:

Those players aim is to destroy all possibilities of the opponent to make a connection. So they often try to play the moves that weakens the opponent's structure the most and later when the other player has no more good moves they connect both sides.

3. Positional:

Positions and patterns are important in defensive and aggressive style too, but with that I mean some kind of hex-like style. Play out corners, try to make ladder breakers at good positions or center domination etc. whatever that player thinks are valuable positions.

4. Tactical:

Try to find unique patterns, somehow try to make use of the special mechanics of TwixT. Experience needed to be able to combine the different known patterns and ladders etc. to a unique 'global tactical pattern'.

Almost no player can be classified in one of those styles, it's often a mixture between all of them.

If I would have to classify some high rated players of league 1 according to a style, I would do it the following way (if you think this is wrong, please explain why, could be an interesting discussion):

1. aggressive: maraca

2. defensive: Nagy Csaba

3. positional: spd_iv, Maciej Celuch

4. tactical: Klaus Hußmanns, David J. Bush

Which style is the best? I think all styles can be succesful, probably the best is a mixture. But it could be that some styles work better against others. I have the feeling that the aggressive style is not good against a defensive player, but has a slight edge against tactical style; on the other hand tactical style seems to be the best vs. positional style...

[without me having any deeper insight to the topic:]

maybe it's like Rock-Paper-Scissors, for each one strategy type there is a superior and an inferior one? Would be interesting. And the remaining one?

"for each one strategy type there is a superior and an inferior one"

i would say that's true of almost any game.

Ok, I am no expert since I can't seem to play well enough to break into the top 20 players but I will give my opinion on this.

I tried to place some of the top players into your categories and I found it difficult. It seems to me that the best players adjust between all four of your categories according to how their opponent plays and, more importantly, according to the stage of the game they are in. The early stage of the game must be played in a positional manner(strategic)if you wish to have any hope later in the game. The later stage of the game is tactical maneuvering based on your earlier strategic decisions. As far as aggressive and defensive goes I just find it hard to see the difference. The best moves of the top players are both aggressive and defensive. I have been beaten many times with a single, well placed, lateral peg that gave my opponent a defensive position in one direction and a point from which to attack in the other. Look at your move here for what I mean. It serves both as defense at the top and offense at the bottom. [twixt;id:1252583;move:17] I just can't figure out how to pigeon hole any of you top players but maybe I just do not have the knowledge to do it.

looks like I misunderstood how to include a game board I will try again

[game;id:1252583;move:17]

@elroy: I agree it's hard to classify a player. I am mainly talking about the first 20 moves. Here in this example this move was planned long ago, otherwise I wouldn't have started the attack that way, I thought it's already won afterwards, but Nagy found a move that made the game a little bit longer. So I would say you have to look at least 10 moves ahead to be able to play any of those styles. Especially in the early stage you have lots of choices which you can play according to those 4 extremes. While wind-milling is more a defensive style, the try to break through the middle would be aggressive style.

@stickman: That's right, except if you play the Nash-equilibrium. The one who differs from that strategy has automatically a lower expectation value.

@Aganju: Right! Rock-paper-scissors was the word I was looking for.

Another thought I had is, that maybe TwixT is just too complex and all games are decided by mistakes... Then we would have to ask: which style makes the least mistakes?

#1283828 David J Bush vs. maraca

(black to move)

Aggressive examples: K9, I13

Defensive examples: M18, K18, K17

Positional/Tactical: Maybe moves like H7 or P18. Sometimes moves that lose an immediate fight but helps other patterns.

Well, it may look pretty random, maybe it's just a scheme how I'm thinking and others see it completely different.

Oops I failed. I mean this position: http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1283828&nmove=5

you mean this [game;id:1283828;move:5]

I can understand what you are getting at with your examples but I think one would have to spend a lot of time studying different players to see if they fall into one category or another. My guess that many would not fall into only one. As for me, I probably would make different moves in your examples depending on the day I was playing. Some days I am a little more aggressive, some days maybe more thoughtful and make positional moves. (My inconsistent play is one of the reasons I am not a top 20 player.) I think your idea about mistakes playing the important role is a good one. Placing your peg one hole in the wrong direction can turn a game. I think that is the key. I wouldn't venture a guess at to which style is the most mistake prone or mistake free.

I would like to suggest that there is at least one more catagory. I'd call it the what-ever-looks-good-for-my-next-move. This was my way of learning the game and I'd like to think I've progressed beyond it but I find that I still use this method sometimes... Or we could shorten it to: Losers method :)

What would be good to demonstrate this--rather than just examples of small sequences of moves--is a game where the overall development of the game illustrates the two distinct styles of the players.

I understand this is easy to do in Chess (say, finding aggressive vs. defensive games). Something similar here would help.