MacBeth is a hexagonal variant of Othello. Renegado is MacBeth with neutrals. It uses the core idea of an Othello variant with neutrals known as Desdemona, invented by Joao Pedro Neto in 2000.


Play Renegado interactively

Rules Black starts. Players must move on their turn, unless they cannot legally move. In that case the turn goes back to the opponent. If neither can move legally, the game ends. The players share 72 bi-colored stones - black one side, white the other - and a sufficient number of neutral stones. A move must be a 'custodian capture': the stone played must trap at least one opponent's stone or unbroken row of stones, between itself and an already present stone of like color OR trap at least one neutral stone or unbroken row of stones in the same way. It can do so in up to four directions simultaneously. Capturing opponent's stones in one direction and neutrals in another is legal, but mixed rows are not allowed. If captured, opponent's stones become neutrals and neutrals become friendly stones. Captured stones are replaced immediately.

Note a peculiar difference with Desdemona, where a move may capture in no less than eight directions. Because Renegado is hexagonal, its directions of capture are along straight lines only, not along diagonals. On top of that one main direction is excluded for every cell by the nature of the board. This makes Renegado somewhat easier to handle: colours do not switch quite that dramatically.

Object

• The game ends by one player's resignation or if both must pass on successive turns.
  The winner is now the player with the most territory, that is: the highest number of friendly stones on the board. Draws are possible.

Strategy
The starting point of all reasoning is obviously the fact that there are six corners with the same feature that is makes them so popular in Othello: a man on it cannot be captured and becomes an anchor to capture along the edges. The fact that corners are strong makes the adjacent cells weak, so these should be avoided. The finer points of strategy are admittedly no less of a mystery to me than those of Othello.

How I invented ... Renegado Renegado © MindSports