I saw someone playing this game before with the three rows. I played a couple times with them, lost, got pissed, and forgot the game existed. Seeing it on here made me determined to figure it out. And figure it out I did….not by trial and error, although that would work too. The game is won or lost on your first move, and the key is to put your opponent in a situation where all he can do is lose. I caught on pretty quickly to what those situations are (there are two main ones and a few derivatives thereof in the three-row game.) There is only one opening move that doesn’t leave you susceptible to one of them, and gives you _the opportunity_ to put your opponent in trouble.

That’s probably what makes this a nice game to mess with people on, because when they’re not familiar, they don’t know what opening move to make; and even if they get lucky and make the correct opening move, they won’t necessarily recognize how to get into the advantageous position.

That said, you can even offer to go first, but then you’ll reveal what the winning opening move is…

Anyway…. Switzerland is still nice. Had an amazing weekend of snowboarding—got some fresh snow and had perfect conditions yesterday. Visited Rome last week, and heading to Barcelona in a couple weeks. So life is good. For all you regulars to buzolich.com, gimme a holler. Otherwise I’ll check back from time to time.

I figured out the fourth row variation as well. Found three ways to win if you go first, and I don’t think there are any more. Curiously, when you let the computer go first it never picks one of those three ways, so you should win every time….