Abalone Online

his is the Abalone game, designed to be played by two remote players, using two network connected iPhone or iPad. The players can be in different places, towns, and even different countries.

One player will deal with white pieces, and will see the game board from his white side; the opponent will deal with black pieces, ad will see the game board on the opposite side.

To start a game, just hit the Start New Game button, and the system will try to find an opponent for you. The match is not immediately granted: it will depend on the presence on the network of at least one player looking for an opponent player. Maybe you have to wait for some time before finding a match.

Once both players have started a game, the white move first.

Abalone is a two-player abstract strategy board game. Players are represented by opposing black and white marbles on a hexagonal board with the objective of pushing six of the opponent's marbles off the edge of the board. The present version is made for both iPad and iPhone. The white marbles are moved by an human player; the back ones can be moved by another humand player, sitting in front of you, or by an automatic robot engine.

The board consists of 61 hexagonal cells. Each player has 14 marbles that rest in the spaces and are initially automatically arranged as the game begins. The players take turns with the white marbles moving first. For each move, a player moves a straight line of one, two or three marbles of one color one space in one of six directions. The move can be either longitudinal (along the line of marbles) or transversal (lateral in respect to the line of marbles). To move a group of marbles (1,2,or 3) you must first touch once all of them: the color of the touched marbles reverts to red. After that, touch the destination cell of the first mable, i.e. the cell where the first marble should be moved.

A player can push their opponent's marbles (a "sumito") that are in a line to their own with an in-line move only. They can only push if the pushing line has more marbles than the pushed line (three can push one or two; two can push one). Marbles must be pushed to an empty space (i.e. not blocked by a marble) or off the board. The winner is the first player to push six of the opponent's marbles off of the edge of the board.

The dynamics of the basic game may have one serious flaw: it seems that a good but conservative player can set up their marbles in a defensive wedge and ward off all attacks indefinitely. An attacker may try to outflank this wedge or lure it into traps, but such advances are often more dangerous to the attacker than the defender. Thus, from the starting position, it takes little skill and no imagination to avoid losing, and nothing in the rules prevents games from being interminable.

The first player who succedes pushing six opponent's mables off the edge of the board wins the game.