I'm more intrigued by Sygo after having two more games underneath my belt, one which can be seen at http://mindsports.nl/cgi-bin/Arena/Serv ... 40888.html. The other just finished, and I guess hasn't appeared on the site yet.

The combination of othellonian (flippy) capture, and the tradeoff between playing new stones and growing existing groups make for interesting attack and defense dynamics. After a few games, I realized that my intuition from Go is as much a hindrance as a help, because a group with lots of apparent space can be rapidly bullied and crushed by several surrounding groups. I don't know, but I wonder if an ideal opening might feature lots of little groups being formed in anticipation of later fights.

For the reasons in the above paragraph, I think it's unwise to call Sygo a Go variant (I don't know if Christian ever did that). Fighting is far too different, and middle-late game invasions are so much less likely that there's not so much in common (unlike, say, Redstone). That's neither good nor bad, just a matter of how you categorize the game.

I don't know if Sygo is a great game--it's too new for me to tell--but I can recommend it as an interesting diversion that should appeal to Go players who are interested in trying new games. It has some promising aspects, and some worrisome ones, but only experience will determine which dominates.

P.S. It should be noted that I'm not necessarily an authority on strategy. I've lost twice to Christian and won once against a different player.

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Occupy Babel!

I agree with pretty much all of that. To add to the mix, I particularly enjoyed playing it on a Hex board - I'm not completely convinced it's better that way, but I think I prefer it, and it has less of the "clunky" feel that I got from the square board (although that may just be my dislike of all the empty triangles )

I really cannot adjust to a hex board. I just can't see connections on it. It's things at the level of missing atari that are still tripping me up.

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Occupy Babel!

One could distinguish between a 'chess variant' and 'a 'variant of Chess' by considering the latter as a game that uses Chess as its basis, like Grand Chess (and zillions of others), and the former an implementation of the theme 'checkmate', like Shakti (and zillions of others).
A similar approach may be possible here (to avoid a totally semantic discussion). There are countless territorial mechanisms, but capturing groups by taking liberties is associated strongly with Go. Capture by reversal is associated with Othello, but less rigid since Othello is equally associated with custodian capture.

Thematically I would argue that Sygo is a Go variant, but not a 'variant of Go'. A more extreme example is Dominions. It employs groups and liberties and knows the concept of 'eyes', which thematically makes it a Go variant, but it's quite obviously lightyears away from being a 'variant of Go'.

My point is that the 'similarity argument' (i.e. Fighting is different), while very true, may not disqualify Sygo as a Go variant, though it is indeed not a 'variant of Go'.

At my Sensei homepage I posted a note saying Havannah isn't in any way related to Go, implying the others are. Actually Symple isn't related to Go either. Don't tell anyone.


I feel Symple is more significant than Sygo. In the latter, not far beyond the balancing compensation has been taken, there's a tipping point in the opening where one player decides to start growing and the other one must follow suit because of the impact of initiative. That is a very difficult decision in terms of timing, where small judgement errors may amplify quickly into a positional disaster. Life must be taken into consideration at all times, since a single group will have great difficulties getting it under combined attack.
Later in the game, the positions may allow reconsidering single placement, but by that time invasions may be less than prospective.

Now arguably, this is all part of the art of playing Sygo, but at the same time I feel Symple is more of a natural born organism, where everything implicitly fits (a hallmark of a quintessential game), whereas Sygo has been cleverly assembled.

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cogito ergo erro