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JANUARY 1975 - FRIDAY 3
3RD DAY - 362 DAYS TO COME

Called Martin Gardner about the letter from Marek Penszko and FOOTBALL (see 12/24/74). Told Martin I didn't know the game, and that I would write to Penszko.

Told him I was doing a new book - THE ART OF GAMES - which in answer to his question, I told him was a tentative title.

Working on THE ART OF GAMES. Started making a new layout for MIRO with all of the spaces in "loops." realized that it would still be hard to see. Instead thought of using the present board with the following rules. The first player draws his color on one segment. The second then goes in either direction with two segments. Then players continue the line with 1, 2, or 3 segments in the same direction after it is set. When a player draws a segment that completes the periphery of a space, he scores one point for each segment of his color around the space. To keep count he puts dots of his color in the space, then marks it in his scoring area, and colors in the space. When four play each can play for himself or can be divided into partnerships. An idea (which I got later) for partnership play is to double the score of the partner in each team with the higher score. This will give an incentive for a team to favor one player, while not completely forgetting the other.

Went over the SPRINGER diagram, erasing a lot of lines and adding a few. Tried it by myself and it seems to allow for more defensive play.

Played SPRINGER with Phil Laurence and there doesn't seem to be any easily discovered winning position at the start.

As another variant (in addition to that of 12/26/74) thought of allowing each player on his first turn to fill in two joining spaces - which is equivalent to eliminating a line. Used the idea that a player must actually fill in triangles on the four edges to win. As refinement of this, a player may not fill in a triangle until he has a space connecting to it. Also, a player can only fill in one triangle on each edge.

Since I had mentioned his name, Annette gave me an article from the TIMES of 6/30/74 (?) with a BRIDGE hand played by Von Zedtwitz (spelling?). (Filed in '75 misc.)

Played the new MIRO with Phil and with Phil and Eliott.

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