Amazons

Eli Bachmutsky sent us this description of the game Amazons. It was posted on the newsgroup rec.games.abstract on 16 Dec 1994, by Ed Pegg Jr ((email removed contact us for address) com.com). The rules have been published in World Game Review and Games.

History

El Juego de las Amazonas was invented in 1988 by Walter Zamkauskas of Argentina, and first published (in Spanish) in issue number 4 of the puzzle magazine El Acertijo in December of 1992. The game was informally introduced to the postal gaming club The Knights of the Square Table by Michael Keller in 1993, where it gained immediate popularity. An authorized translation by Mr. Keller was published in January 1994 in World Game Review. The first international match was a friendly team match, played by fax between Argentina and the United States in 1994-1995; the six games were split 3-3. A team postal match between Italy and the United States is in progress.

El Juego de las Amazonas (The Game of the Amazons) is a trademark of Ediciones de Mente. For more information, contact : Jaime Poniachik, Publicaciones Aperiodicas, Casilla de Correo 74, Sucursal 12, 1412 Buenos Aires, Argentina (fax. 054-1-962-8343).

Equipment

Rules

Sample Games-in-progress

Computer Game

Computer Version -- The Game of the Amazons was programmed in Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0 for Windows by Michael Keller in April and May of 1995. The program also requires vbrun300.dll (available at most shareware sites), Windows 3.1 (not tested under 3.0), a Windows-compatible mouse, and VGA graphics. The program is provided as is, and no guarantees as to its performance are given. Reports of bugs may be sent to (email removed contact us for address) .com, or to: Michael Keller, World Game Review, 1747 Little Creek Drive, Baltimore, MD 21207-5230.

Screen shot of 'The Game of The Amazons'
Version 1.9
Program (c) 1995 Michael Keller

The above was authored by: Ed Pegg Jr.. The above was invented by: Walter Zamkauskas.
Created on: January 29, 1999. Last modified on: March 10, 1999.

Comments

Date	Name	Rating	Comment
2005-09-07	Roberto Lavieri	Excellent	If you are interested in this popular territorial game and you are encouraged to try a very strong opponent, I suggest the AMAZONG Java applet that you can find at: jenslieberum.de/amazong/amazong.html AMAZONG is perhasp the strongest program playing Amazons now, nevertheless, it can be beated by humans, I have won a couple of times (but I have lost at least ten games against it). I think AMAZONG, under conventional time controls, plays at a level equivalent to 2400-2500 rating, translating it to Chess ELO, but the Java applet only uses a few seconds for each move, so the level is a bit lower, although it is strong enough, I believe not less than 2200. Try it!.
2005-07-08	Roberto Lavieri	Excellent	I don“t know how many users and members of TCVP have played this great game. I have only seen at brainking.com that Andreas has been an active Amazons player, with a good performance. The best rated Amazons player at brainking is Grim Reaper (Ed Trice) Total score: 269 wins, 17 draws, 0 losses. Impressively good score.
2005-06-28	Roberto Lavieri	None	It should be good a Courier Preset for this extraordinary game, impressive both in its simplicity of ideas involved and in its complexity and deepness as board game. I don“t know if there is the need of a permission for it. All I know is that the name 'El Juego de las Amazonas' is a registered mark, I am not sure if the game has been patented or not. I have tried to stablish contact with the propertary of the mark ('Ediciones De Mente'), but it has been impossible, I do not know whether it exists or not now. This game can be played using a few other servers on the Internet, like 'Brainking', by example. Can we add a Preset for this game here?. If it is the case, I would ask editors for it, this popular game is not exactly a Chess variant, estrictly speaking, but it is hightly related to Chess and it has its own Page in TCVP. Amazons has merits enough for being in the Courier system.
2004-10-13	Iain	None	You can play-by-web Amazons at www.littlegolem.net.
2004-08-23	Andreas Kaufmann	Excellent	This is really a very interesting game! It can be played now also on <a href=http://www.brainking.com>BrainKing server.