UPDATE: the rules have been revised YET AGAIN, and so even the version you see here is now wrong. The new, and god-I-hope final version, along with a discussion of the game, can be found here.
It was discovered that my game Ketchup, as originally conceived, has a big first mover advantage, and that this ignominious problem grows worse on large boards (which is unusual). Luckily, there’s a natural fix, which results in a finely balanced game which might be better than the original.
The fix is: the asymmetric move rules don’t kick in until someone has formed a group of at least 2 stones. That is to say: the 12* move rule is in place until a group of at least 2 is formed, and from then on the player with the largest group plays 2 stones on the player without the largest group plays three.
So I’m writing to post the new rules here, and to note that the ig game center, where Ketchup can be played online, has been updated to reflect the modification.
