Sinfrid

IntroductionSinfrid (from Irish: sineirgíocht frith, meaning “anti-synergy”) is a drawless game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the hexagons (cells) of an initially empty hexagonal board. The recommended size is 7 cells per side, but boards of size 5 and 9 are also valid. Each player has access to a sufficient supply of stones of their color. Definitions: A group is the maximal set of stones of the same color connected to each other. A single stone is also a group. The size of a group is the number of stones it contains. A stone sees a cell when it is connected to it through a straight line, with no enemy stones in between. The rooted stone of a group is the first stone of that group placed on the board during a turn. The branched stones of a group are all stones placed after the rooted stone within the same group during the same turn. A new group is a group placed during a turn and is composed of a rooted stone along with all branched stones that follow it; otherwise, it is an old group. A new group may contain no branched stones. A grafted group is a new group resulting from a placement that connects two or more friendly groups. To flip is to replace friendly stones with enemy stones. Turns:Black plays first, then turns alternate. On your turn, place a rooted stone on an empty cell, followed by the branched stones with which it will form a new placed group of size N, where the rooted stone sees N friendly groups. At the end of your turn, flip a grafted friendly group. If there are not enough empty cells to place a group, you may fill them by placing a smaller group of your color in that maximal set of empty cells to make it fit. End of the game:The game ends when players can no longer place stones, and the player with the fewest stones of their color on the board wins. To balance the game, before starting, the first player places one black stone and one white stone on any empty cells, and the second player chooses a side. This balancing method is called the two-stone pie rule. —description from the designer