Unlur is a game for two players, played on a hexagon-shaped tesselation of hexagons, with an established number of hexagons on each side.
| Unlur board with six hexagons on each side |
Definitions:
Two stones of the same color are connected if their cells share a common boundary.
A group of stones is a connected group if any stone in the group can be reached from any other stone through a series of connected pairs of stones in the group.
A stone is connected to a side if it occupies a cell on that side of the board.
| A black connected pair |
| A white connected group |
| A black connected group which is connected to a side. |
A Y is a connected group of stones of the same color that is connected to three non-adjacet sides of the board.
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The game is won by White as soon as he makes a line. The game is won by Black as soon as he makes a Y. If a player achieves his opponent's objetive, he loses, unlesss he simultaneously achieves his own winning condition.
Draws are imposible, one player must win.
Obviously White has a strong advantage because the White objetive, a line, is much easier to obtain than a Y. For this reason a sharp way has been developed in order to ballance the game.
At the start of the game white and balck colors are not assigned to the players; they place alternately black stones on any vacant hexagon until one player passes. During this first phase pieces cannot be placed on the outlying hexagons of the board.
When one player passes the other player will be white and he has to make white's first move.
The contract ensures a ballanced game.
After this, the game continues normally; players move alternatively, each of them placing their own coloured pieces.