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frank wrote:(I haven't tried the game yet because I'm a tad fearful of putting my CC info into a portable app. Sorry if my suggestion doesn't actually make sense for it.)
This thread might help put you at ease:
Yes, thanks, Dan. That was an interesting read, to boot.
@jason: Yeah, it is a little overly complex; I was only thinking about the legal question (and maybe a little bit about shoehorning in auctions, because they are cool).
My reading of the legal quotes I've seen in this thread is that, yes, the procedure
1) Pay stake
2) Flip coin to play first
3) Play Hex to win the pot
*would* constitute a game subject to chance. The procedure sounds very much like gambling, since step 3 degenerates to "first player wins" (or should, based on the strategy-stealing argument you mention, anyway).
This procedure is analogous to what happens in your game, right? You pay before you see the random handicap you've been given. It's not the asymmetry that is the problem per se, but that the players have paid in before seeing it.
It's pretty clear that the layout of the board that may favor one player is not a significant factor in the outcome of the game. On a given round, the layout of the board is not going to tilt the game in the favor of a beginner over an expert.
You could permit this randomness into your game, yeah, but then you'd have to fight the prosecutor's claim that it is a "significant" factor. It may be pretty clearly not, but who knows how that can be shown to a judge's satisfaction. You have to show that it's like flipping a coin to play white in chess. If you think you can do it, then I guess you're on pretty secure footing against the line of legal attack we're talking about in this thread.
The board-twice-in-a-row thing could also do the trick, as you say, so long as the second round is always reached and is arguably just as valuable no matter what happened in the first round. Again, an argument is required. I think rearranging the sequence of events so that players can't be construed as paying for a chance (i.e., something determined by "Nature") at a favorable handicap would put you on unassailable footing, but it might entail compromising your vision for the game...
Anyway, thanks for inviting me to try the game! I've just played my first match and look forward to trying it out some more.
How about a second-price sealed-bid auction for the right to choose your side of the board. I mean:
1) Have players agree on and pay initial stakes.
2) Show both players the board.
3) Each player chooses a preferred side (rows or columns) and how much they are willing to pay to play on it.
4) The player with the higher bid gets their preferred side and adds the lower bid to the pot.
5) Play proceeds as usual.
You can have a different board every time, generated in any way.
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Some related ideas: Steps 1 and 2 could be reversed. You could circulate boards for some brief time, collecting data on bids.
By the way, white being able to force a win in chess is news to me. I mean, no one solved the game by backward induction yet, right?
(I haven't tried the game yet because I'm a tad fearful of putting my CC info into a portable app. Sorry if my suggestion doesn't actually make sense for it.)
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