Beginner: Calculating Moves and Outcomes

Courtesy player Losermaker on Stratego.com's forums 

Calculating Moves
One of the first things everyone will learn in Stratego is calculating how many moves to get from here to there? Will I make it there first? If you are having trouble getting caught out just 1 move too late, that’s ok. It happens to all of us and just takes time and experience. However, there is a simple fix to a lot of people’s problems – Buffer. Your buffer is there for thinking time, and while you should not really be eating into it during normal play, there are some cases where it may take a minute or even two to calculate what the outcome of a situation is going to be.

The most basic calculations should not really take more than the 15 seconds you get for your move.

Example1:

A simple move count situation where red wants to get to the lieutenant and major:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/840ix18oyn70kps/Example1.PNG?dl=0

These situations happen all the time, and you should eventually be able to calculate these while playing in ‘auto pilot’ mode.

Then there are more advanced scenario’s which may take some thought, like this one:

Example2:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0pu7hgj5ah55un3/Example2.PNG?dl=0%5C

Credit to DeepLimbo for the puzzle found here.

It is in situations like these, though they are quite rare, that you will need to take a little time to calculate the moves. Even some of the very best players at this site failed the answer to this one (check out the link if you want to see the answer).

Here is an example of a situation that I got into in a real game:

Example3:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hefr17xpwrj02pa/Example3.PNG?dl=0

Blue player has 1 other unknown sergeant. Red to move. I lost this game by simply charging my miner at F10 into his base, thinking his flag was probably at I10. However, the perfect play takes just a little extra thought, and I did not stop to think before I did it. Here is the perfect play:

Alternate between red and blue moves.

Red: F10-G10, G10-H10, J7-J8, H10-I10, J8-J9, J9-J10 Game over

Blue: E9-F9, F9-G9, G9-H9, I9-I10, ???.

Here is where I ended up:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6cd26fh8oh3mdu9/Example3%28part2%29.PNG?dl=0

Now my miner can not make it to his flag. But even here there is another calculation to be made (I did not make it as I was surprised that my guess was wrong and I blanked). Can you bring back your miner and use your general to get the flag? The answer is YES you can. Even after the mistake earlier, if you play it correct now, then you will make it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/efdjbz170ec42ko/Example3%28part3%29.PNG?dl=0

From here it is a certain loss for blue (provided I don’t make another huge mistake)

Calculation with sacrificing a piece
There are other situations (mostly if you are down) where you will sacrifice a piece to gain an advantage, if you can see what the outcome will be. However, when doing this make sure that you KNOW (after calculating it) that it will 100% work. An example of this happened in one of my Wintertourn2015 final games against Playa1 (Tim Slagboom).

Example4:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/482hueprx00l5p6/Example4.PNG?dl=0

Tim is down a general and a major.

Here he pauses for a long time (1m 42s to be exact) whilst he weighs up the risk of lottoing G3 and then sacrificing his colonel to take the spy. This will result in my spy being gone, but he still gets the colonel back. After he has thought it through he proceeds with it as follows:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ubu762cw1lpg97t/Example4%28part2%29.mp4?dl=0

This is a great example of thinking through things before making moves that could decide whether you win or lose.

Decision Making/Thinking Through Moves
A big part of calculating outcomes is decision making. I find quite a lot of players getting this wrong by simply not thinking about whether they even have a choice. You have to really think, “is there any way to win if I don’t do this?” and “what does my opponent want me to do?”.

Here is an example of a tough decision I had in a game:

Example5:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mpxzopa9b54qana/Example5.PNG?dl=0

For the graveyards I am the orange pieces and my opponents are red. I am up a colonel, lieutenant and miner, but down a general, captain and sergeant. My opponent wants to swap colonels to make it his general vs colonel, his captain vs lieutenant, his sergeant vs miner.

I am thinking here about sacrificing my colonel on the left to get my colonel through to take some of his moved pieces and maybe go for a lotto. If you think about it, the decision that you have to make really becomes quite clear. If you let him swap, you will lose for sure; He has 3 higher ranked vs 3 lower ranked.

Here is where a lot of people think “Oh, he got my colonel, nice move. I might try running a captain up to try to lotto.”. This is unrealistic, your captain has about a 5% chance of making it to the back row, and a smaller chance of doing so and gaining a piece.

So, if swapping out is not an option, the only real one is to sacrifice one of your colonels, in this case the one on the left.

Losing a colonel may seem like it will lead to a certain loss also (excluding possibility of lottoing open flag) but if you can gain a captain and he then swaps colonels, it will become your lieutenant vs his general your miner vs his sergeant, so the situation will not actually change too much. If you pick up more than 1 piece, you have gained a small advantage.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/05ocmylufdh3f2g/Example5%28part2%29.mp4?dl=0

I picked up a sergeant and a miner. Due to my colonel being down near his flag, I was able to force him to sacrifice a captain to take a miner and my sergeant on the left was not taken by his general. So, all up I lost a colonel and miner, but gained a captain, sergeant and miner. When he came to swap colonels again, I was not sure if I should lotto for another piece/flag or swap. I thought I might be able to win without lotto and it was better odds. I don’t know if that was the right decision as I ended up losing the game, but that was due to a smart lotto by my opponent.

Calculating Moves in Advance
One last thing I want to touch on is calculating moves in advance. This simply means that in a situation like example 1  you have already calculated the moves, so you know that if you can get 1 extra move on his marshal, you will get his lieutenant. Drawing people 1 move away is easier than you think, it only takes them to forget what they are guarding from as they go after another piece.

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions please feel free to ask them in my other thread found here

Alternatively, you can send me a PM but if it is a general question I think it is better that it is a public post so that all may learn/benefit from it.

Pulled off a great set of moves after some serious calculation? Have other great move puzzles? I would love to hear about them! Please share it under

Gl with your games,

Losermaker

Special thanks to Morx for his Setup Editor and Tilor for Editing.