Board-game daydream • sumito puzzles

Abalone Push Lab

Jon once wrote, with charming understatement, that he heard Abalone was an excellent game. Quite right. This is a jewel-box training board for the best bit of Abalone: lining up a beautiful shove and nudging your rival right off the edge.

Current puzzle 1 / 5
Goal Push 1 off
Your moves 0
Ivory marbles ejected 0
✨

Puzzle solved

That was a lovely little sumito. Onward.

Puzzle 1 · Gentle Introduction

➜

Use a line of three to push a single ivory marble off the right edge.

Select a dark marble to begin. You can choose up to three in a straight line.
Your marbles
Rival marbles
Selected lane

Why this page exists

It is part tiny tactics trainer, part midnight board-game shrine. The look leans velvet-and-walnut on purpose: something that feels like a classic game box rediscovered in a lamp-lit study.

Three sly tactics

  1. Inline attacks only work if your selected line is longer than the enemy line directly ahead.
  2. Broadside moves are glorious for repositioning, but they do not push. Side-step first, then ram.
  3. Edges are your friends. If a white marble has nowhere to go because the next cell is off-board, congratulations, it is gone.

Inspired by Jon Aquino's post “Tom, let's have a game of Abalone sometime...” from 2004. Built as a self-contained little tactics toy for the web lab.