A vintage board game box for "CLOBBER POPOMATIC," featuring a smiling child, the game's colorful 3D playing surface with a clear dome containing a die, and a red figure named "MR. CLOBBER." Text on the box indicates it is a chase game for 2-4 players aged 4 and up, describing the gameplay and touting it as "A 3-Dimensional fast action game for all the family."
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Clobber (2001)

ByMichail

Clobber

Clobber is an abstract strategy game invented in 2001 by combinatorial game theorists Michael H. Albert, J.P. Grossman, and Richard Nowakowski. The game is best played with two players and typically takes an average of 15 minutes to play, with a suggested age rating of 8 and up. It is played on a rectangular white and black checkerboard, and players take turns to move one of their own pieces onto an orthogonally adjacent opposing piece, removing it from the game. The winner of the game is the player who makes the last move, i.e., whose opponent cannot move.

Why is Clobber Popular?

Clobber is a popular game because it is an abstract strategy game that requires mental agility and quick thinking. It has gained attention in the field of artificial intelligence and combinatorial game theory, as it is a 2-player partizan game with perfect information, and many board positions have exact game-theoretic values. This makes it an ideal game for studying and implementing combinatorial game-theoretic values in game players, such as Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) based Clobber players.

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Michail, a seasoned tabletop enthusiast, dives headfirst into worlds of fantasy and strategy. Whether commanding a party of adventurers through perilous dungeons or engaging in tactical showdowns on the board, Michail is the maestro of the tabletop realm. Michail's gaming table is a realm where the clatter of dice and the shuffle of cards create a symphony of strategic chaos.

Hobby: Miniature painting guru, turning pewter into masterpieces
Preferred Game: Dungeons & Dragons, but always up for a board game brawl