- Fri Feb 10, 2012 9:32 am
#3660
You need to undertake a more holistic approach to identifying template games, as there is rarely one single factor that makes us diagram every major possibility template. Generally speaking, this technique should be applied to games with a defining rule limiting the placement of a variable or variable configuration to just two or three places. To ID possibilities/templates, look for any (or all) of the following: a large number of disparate rules, some limiting principle in the game (e.g. numerical distribution), large blocks, etc.
Solving a game is very much like traveling on a highway: if you see a few exits in front of you, it may be worthwhile to explore them, provided that each exit (or template) yields a finite number of exit points, or solutions. And even if it doesn't, simply diagramming each template up to a point may be worthwhile, assuming that some of the other rules play out differently within each template.
For instance, imagine you have the following rule: either A makes more money than B, or else A makes more money than C, but not both. The rule divides the game into two major avenues of solutions, as it produces two sequencing chains: C > A > B or B > A > C. This fact alone is insufficient to trigger templates, but you should consider the approach if you have other rules telling you what would happen if, for instance, C > B, and also what would happen if B > C.
All in all, it's a dangerous weapon because it can waste time if used on the wrong game. But in recent years, we have seen more and more games whose solution is fairly limited and best approached with templates
Nikki Siclunov
PowerScore Test Preparation
