by eobllor
[q=wargamer55](...) the tendency to be drawish. While it's very hard to actually stalemate a game of Abalone (I have read that it's possible) the course of the game between two evenly matched players is likely to be very much like a sumo match. Am awful lot of pushing and shoving that's opportunistic but very little in the way of actual strategy. (...)Abalone is, really, what I like to call a "trivial" game, in that it can be fun, but there's little incentive to indulge in a lot of analysis.
It is not very hard to get a cycle in Abalone (particularly with the standard starting configuration), and as I have written below, that is a problem. With a 'good' starting configuration, there is much strategy involved, at least at the beginning.
Abalone is far from trivial. There can be quite deep sequences involved in a game. This is why the best AI of Abalone (MLA by David Malek and Aba-Pro by Tino Werner) are stronger than almost any human (with 10-ply depth and a 'good' starting configuration).
The main problem is that the standard starting configuration does not provide a good start: because of its stable nature, it allows a moderately good player to avoid defeat rather easily against anyone: it suffices to be passive (only defending and waiting for a mistake of the opponent). This is often stated as obvious in comments found here or elsewhere on the Web (I think it is not so much the case, even though the conclusion holds: people regularly say so without enough knowledge).
Other variants such as the Belgian daisy start in an unstable configuration (what I call 'good' here), thus the players really have something to do if they want to avoid a loss. And it is very hard to devise an optimal strategy, especially if you play White.
The second problem of Abalone is that getting stronger is often not as rewarding as in, e. g., the game of Go. One must improve considerably to be able to win against players that are good due to experience and tactical skill but have not much of a strategy except going for the centre or breaking the opponent in the middle.
To sum it up, it is easy to miss something and obtain a drawish configuration instead of a win.
[q=wargamer55]Among all the forum postings about Abalone on BGG there's just one short one on strategy, that points out the value of holding the center space on the board. That's just not much to build a "classic" game on after 25 years.
There are many Abalone players, but
- few of them play on-line;
- very few (if any) of those who do not play on-line get strong;
- few of those who do play on-line really get strong.
Thus, there are very few strong Abalone players, hence not much discussion on strategical topics. Moreover, not much of the available stuff is from them.
As a conclusion I would say that despite this obvious lack of literature about strategy in Abalone and despite the looming draw, there is nevertheless a lot more for a strong player than getting to the centre; I do not know if that is enough to build a classic...