The Last 21- of May

21- (Khorkov* - Jordan+Aunt Beast, 2010-05-31) 1(22)2 1(23)1[2,3] 4(24)23 4(25)4[5-8] 2(26)2 24(27)25 9(28)9[10-21] 9(29@27)28 10(30)10[11-12] 13(31)13[14-17] II

The position after move 31 is *1+4+4L4L2. Roman resigned here, saying, "Not bad." According to Aunt Beast, 13(32)31[18-19] wins (yielding *1+4+4+2P2L2), though I suspect the resulting position would be too complicated for a human to defend.

The Surprise of 2010

21- (Jordan+Aunt Beast* - Khorkov, 2010-05-17) 1(22)2 1(23)1[2,3] 4(24)23 4(25)4[5-8] 2(26)2 24(27)25 9(28)9[10-21] 9(29)28[10-11] 21(30)21[18-20] 10(31)29 10(32)10[11] 21(33)30[12-13] I

Roman writes, "Ha! Surprise of 2010: 4+2P4 P-.", though I emailed him about this in January 2009.

Clinic in 10-

10- (Khorkov - Jordan+Aunt Beast*, 2010-05-27) 1(11)1[2-4] 1(12@2)11 {Roman: You lose.} 2(13)12 {Josh: Not so fast....} 5(14)6 5(15)5[6] 7(16)7[8-9] 7(17)16[8] I



The position that results from move 15 is 4Q1+PP3, which is in P^-. On paper, at least, the position is complicated: 4Q1 = 6 1(7)2 1(8)1[2] is wild of length 11 with nim-values 0¹ and PP3 = {*0, {*3, {*2}}, {*1, {*2}}} is wild of length 4 with nim-values 3⁰. Obviously, this doesn't pose a problem for the Russian sprouts savant, but I'd still like to know just how he knew that their sum is a misere P-position.

Khorkov wins at 15-

15- (Jordan+Aunt Beast - Khorkov*) 1(16)2 1(17)1[2-3] 4(18)17 4(19)4[5-8] 2(20)2 18(21)19 9(22)9[10-11] 9(23)21 22(24)23[12-13] 5(25)5[6] 14(26)24 14(27)14 II

Khorkov shows how to play 15-

15- (Jordan+Aunt Beast* - Khorkov, 2010-05-13) 1(16)2 1(17)1[2-3] 4(18)17 4(19)4[5-8] 9(20)10 18(21)19[9-11] 5(22)6 20(23)21 II

Roman writes, "Aunt Beast has been taken prisoner and is now fighting Somalian pirates..."