Brique 2012

IntroductionBrique is a drawless connection game for two players: Black and White. It's played on the squares of a checkered board, which is initially empty. The top and bottom edges of the board are colored black; the left and right edges are colored white.

DefinitionsThe escorts of a light square are the square immediately in front of it and the square immediately to the left of it.

The escorts of a dark square are the square immediately behind it and the square immediately to the right of it.

PlayBlack plays first, then turns alternate. On his turn, a player must place one stone of his color on an empty point.

After a placement, if the two escorts of one or more squares are occupied by friendly stones and said squares aren't occupied by friendly stones yet, the player must place a stone of his color on each one of them, removing, where appropriate, any enemy stones already placed there. Note that some squares on the edge of the board have only one escort or no escorts at all. These squares are not affected by this rule.

The game is won by the player who completes a chain of orthogonally adjacent stones of his color touching the two opposite board edges of his color. Draws are not possible.

Pie ruleThe pie rule is used in order to make the game fair. This means that White will have the option, on his first turn only, to change sides instead of making a regular move.

NotesTwo like-colored, diagonally adjacent stones parallel to the NE-SW diagonal are always connected through a common neighbor in Brique, so, as in Hex, each square has actually six neighbours, and the board behaves like a rhombus, with one diagonal twice as shorter as the other. Needless to say, however, Brique is not isomorphic to Hex.