EinStein würfelt nicht!

Home * Games * EinStein würfelt nicht!



EinStein würfelt nicht!, (Ewn) a turn-based two-player board game of chance and strategy, designed by Ingo Althöfer in 2004. It was the official game of an exhibition about Albert Einstein in Germany during the World Year of Physics 2005. Ingo introduced his game to computer chess programmers at the IPCCC 2005 in Paderborn, where it was immediately played with enthusiasm between rounds, further spread and played during the ICT 2005 in Leiden the same year.

=Rules= Played on a 5x5 board, each player has six cubes or stones numbered one to six, initially placed on the diagonal opposed six corner squares, ordered by their players discretion or randomly. The object of the game is to either get an own stone to the opponent's corner, or to remove all of the opponent's stones. A move consists of rolling a six-sided dice to determine a stone to move by its number, and pushing that stone one step forward in one of the three directions closer to opponent's corner. Own and opponent stones on the target square are (self) captured and removed from the board. If the matching stone is no longer on the board, the player choose a remaining one whose number is either next-highest or next-lowest. The fewer stones, the more "mobile" they are. With only one stone (German: "Ein Stein") left, rolling the dice is no longer necessary. This feature along with Albert Einstein's quote "God doesn't play with dice"  was eponym of the game.

=Computer Ewn= Ewn Computer bots usually apply some sort of Monte-Carlo tree search. Since 2011, EinStein würfelt nicht! is played at the Computer Olympiad, also with some computer chess programmers competing with their own Ewn bots - Richard Pijl and Johannes Zwanzger. In Tilburg 2011, Theo van der Storm's former Connect6 program MeinStein, written in Java, won the Gold medal, operated by Jan Krabbenbos.

=Computer Olympiads=
 * 16th Computer Olympiad, Tilburg 2011
 * 18th Computer Olympiad, Leiden 2015
 * 19th Computer Olympiad, Leiden 2016
 * 20th Computer Olympiad, Leiden 2017

=Photos=

ICT 2005
Theo van der Storm and Jan Krabbenbos playing EinStein würfelt nicht! during ICT 2005.

Tilburg 2011
Grace and Jan Krabbenbos with Gold for Theo's MeinStein, Silver for Wesley Turner on the right

=Publications=

2009

 * Jakob Erdmann (2009). Chanciness: Towards a Characterization of Chance in Games. ICGA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 4, 7.2 EinStein Würfelt Nicht

2010 ...

 * Jakob Erdmann (2010). The Characterization of Chance and Skill in Games. Dissertation, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, pdf, 20 "EinStein Würfelt Nicht!" and Variants Thereof, pp. 95-107
 * Richard J. Lorentz (2011). An MCTS Program to Play EinStein Würfelt Nicht! Advances in Computer Games 13
 * Wesley Turner (2012). EinStein Würfelt Nicht – An Analysis of Endgame Play. ICGA Journal, Vol. 35, No. 2 » 16th Computer Olympiad

2015 ...

 * Michael Hartisch (2015). Impact of Rounding during Retrograde Analysis for a Game with Chance Nodes: Karl’s Race as a Test Case. ICGA Journal, Vol. 38, No. 2 » Retrograde Analysis
 * Ingo Althöfer (2015). HANFRIED wins EinStein Würfelt Nicht! Tournament. ICGA Journal, Vol. 38, No. 4 » 18th Computer Olympiad | EWN
 * Édouard Bonnet (2017). Analytical Solution for "EinStein würfelt nicht!" with One Stone. Advances in Computer Games 15
 * Simon Viennot (2017). Toward Solving "EinStein würfelt nicht!". Advances in Computer Games 15

=Forum Posts=
 * Re: Pictures of the IPCCC 2005 by Richard Pijl, CCC, February 27, 2005
 * Ein Stein Wuerfelt nicht (One stone doesn't throw dice) by Theo van der Storm, CCC, March 03, 2005


 * A challenge to Theo van der Storm! by Ingo Althöfer, CCC, March 04, 2005
 * Rules of "EinStein wuerfelt nicht" by Ingo Althöfer, CCC, March 05, 2005


 * EinStein würfelt nicht by Edmund Moshammer, CCC, January 14, 2009
 * Einstein wuerfelt nicht by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, July 03, 2016 » WinBoard, XBoard

=External Links=
 * EinStein würfelt nicht! - Wikipedia
 * EinStein würfelt nicht! | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
 * On the Origins of "EinStein würfelt nicht!" by Ingo Althöfer
 * Einstein würfelt nicht von Ingo Althöfer, Copyright 2004 (German)
 * Einstein wuerfelt nicht - Perlhuhn.de
 * "Gott würfelt nicht" -- "EinStein" auch nicht, Heise online, April 21, 2005 (German)
 * Stormy's Corner in remembrance on Theo van der Storm, CSVN site, Download of MeinStein

Tournaments

 * "EinStein würfelt nicht" - Duel on Campus 2005 by Ingo Althöfer
 * "EinStein wurfelt nicht" - The Tournament in Jena 2005 by Ingo Althöfer
 * "EinStein würfelt nicht" in the Computer Olympiad 2011 by Ingo Althöfer
 * EinStein würfelt nicht! (ICGA Tournaments)

Online Play

 * Little Golem - online board games
 * Mastermoves, THE games site!

=References=

Up one Level