Flicker 2016

Flicker is a connection game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the intersections (points) of an initially empty square grid (board). The top and bottom edges of the board are colored black; the left and right edges are colored white.

Black plays first, then turns alternate. On your turn, place a stone of your color on an empty point or remove a stone from an enemy weak pair. A weak pair is a pair of like-colored, diagonally adjacent stones with no like-colored stone orthogonally adjacent to both.

You must not place a stone where your opponent just removed a stone from or remove a stone your opponent just placed. Also, you must not remove a stone if either player removed any stone on their single latest turn. Passing is not allowed, but, if you have no legal moves available, your turn is skipped.

You win if there is a chain of orthogonally connected stones of your color touching the two opposite board edges of your color.

If a board position is repeated with the same player to move, the game ends in a draw. This can happen in certain positions with a board full of stones, but no position is known where creating a repetition is the optimal course of play.

To make the game fair, White will have the option, on their first turn only, to swap sides with Black instead of making a regular move.