Grand Abalone

Grand Abalone is a variant of Abalone invented by Alex Borello in 2011.

Rules

The rules are the same as Abalone with the following exceptions:

• The board is bigger, with 91 circular spaces arranged in a hexagon, with six on each side.
• Each players has 21 marbles each, with an extra daisy of seven marbles added in comparison to Abalone.
• All turns are made up of two consecutive moves. An exception is the very first turn of the game for Black, where they make just one move - like in Abalone. The reason for this exception is to balance the starting player advantage, and ensure each player always finishes their turn one move ahead of their opponent.
• For each move, a player may push up to four of their marbles in a single line. In Abalone this limit is three.
• To win the game, a player needs to push out 10 of their opponent's marbles. In Abalone the requirement is 6.