Tips squadro

Quick tips

These are very general tips and may not be applicable to every game or situation, but they can help to get started in Squadro.

• Slow pace: Do not rush with your fast pieces.
• 1's are key: Protect your 1's. Attack your opponent's 1's.
• Zugzwang delusion: Having your pieces taken is not always a bad thing—actually it is often beneficial.

Further insights

It is important to notice that the more pieces you finish with, the less options you have to choose from, making your moves more predictable. Therefore a good strategy is to try to force your opponent to finish with some key pieces to the point where you can control the board by blocking your opponent's remaining pieces while holding some spare moves to waste in case of necessity. However, this done in excess may lead to being too many moves behind the opponent, what can eventually turn into a loss if not handled properly.

Ways of winning

This leads to two general ways of winning Squadro.

1. By control: when the player is able to block or hinder the opponent favoring the advance of his/her own pieces.
2. By race: when the player wins the game by repeatedly advancing with one (or some) piece(s) having less moves to finish than the opponent regardless of the opponent's choices.

Notation

We use the following convention for calling the pieces.

Red pieces, from left to right:

• Going (↓): R1, R2, R3, R4, R5.
• Coming (↑): S1, S2, S3, S4, S5.

Yellow pieces, from top to bottom:

• Going (→): Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5.
• Coming (←): Z1, Z2, Z3, Z4, Z5.

In addition, the line (horizontal or vertical) where the pieces start the game has numbering 0, and the line where the pieces change directions has numbering 6.