Mathrix

[Ron Hale-Evans <rwhe@...>]

Like Mike Schoessow, I enjoyed reading over the Matrix rules, although
I found them somewhat hard to understand, myself.

One of the first games I have tried from the competition is Mathrix
(with an 'h'), by Clark Rodeffer, in which you try to clear the 4x6
board of coins (leaving only one coin) by forming mathematical
equations with their values.  I played two games of Mathrix at lunch
today.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do as well at the second game,
as something came up toward the end of lunch and I pretty much had to
throw my coins into the box and pack up.

I won my first game easily in six moves, without using anything than
"four-banger" math for anything but the n^0=1 move Clark recommends
you save for last if you can.  Here's a record.  'R1' means the first
row of the board and 'C1' the first column, etc.

1. C6: 4+4-4=4
2. R1: 1+1-2=0
3. R2: 2-5+0=-3
4. R4: 3+3-3-1=2
5. R3: 5-5=0
6. C1: 5^0=1

This left just a '2' coin on the board, so I won.  I wondered whether
I was just lucky, so I played the second game, which also lasted
six turns, and left the following coins on the board (yahoo-safe):

4
5
2 3

Is there any way I could have won the game at this point?

I also have a question for Clark: are expressions other than integers
allowed on both sides of equations?  For example, you can say that
5+2=7, but can you say that 5+2=3+4?  I couldn't find an example of
this in the rules at the time, so under the "if it feels like
cheating, it probably is" Mathrix rule, I did not create equations
like this.  If I had been able to, I might have won my second game...

Also, Clark, have you ever played a game in which you left no coins on
the board at all?  I don't see why it should be impossible.

Ron

-- 
    Ron Hale-Evans ... rwhe@... ... http://ron.ludism.org/
	 Center for Ludic Synergy, Seattle Cosmic Game Night,
Kennexions Glass Bead Game & Positive Revolution FAQ: http://www.ludism.org/