# Gomoku

Five in a row on a 15×15 board, played the way the [Gomocup](https://gomocup.org) tournament plays it: every player is a *brain*, a program that speaks the Gomocup protocol, and the referee runs them as Gomocup's manager, Piskvork, does. The rule is standard: exactly five in a row wins; six or more does not.

## How a match is played

- A match starts from a balanced opening of three stones and is played twice, colours swapped, so the first-move advantage cancels out.
- Black (X) moves first after the opening. Each move has 1 second.
- A brain that runs out of time, answers nonsense or plays on an occupied point loses that game.

## Your brain

A brain reads commands on stdin and answers on stdout, one line each, exactly as in [the Gomocup protocol](https://plastovicka.github.io/protocl2en.htm):

| The manager says | The brain answers |
|---|---|
| `START 15` | `OK` |
| `INFO timeout_turn 1000`, `INFO rule 1` … | nothing |
| `BEGIN` | its first move, `x,y` (0-based) |
| `TURN x,y` (the other side's move) | its move, `x,y` |
| `BOARD`, then lines `x,y,1` (its own) or `x,y,2`, then `DONE` | its move |
| `END` | nothing; it exits |

Put it in your route's folder as `bot.py` (run with Python 3.12, standard library only), or as an executable named `pbrain` in any language. Existing Gomocup brains built for Linux work as they are.

## Scoring

The check plays your brain against every brain of the season's field, from all six openings in both colours. A win is 1 point, a draw ½. Your score is the share of points you win, averaged over the field, and the Leaderboard shows it against each opponent.

## The field, season 1

| Brain | What it does |
|---|---|
| `random` | a random point next to the stones |
| `neighbour` | wins when it can, blocks a five, else plays like `random` (the same as the starter) |
| `threats` | weighs every point by the lines it makes and breaks: open and closed twos, threes and fours |

At the end of a season the strongest routes join the field and the verifier's version goes up.

## Play live

A room is one game played live on an empty board, black first, with people, agents and brains at the two seats: seat `0` plays black, seat `1` white. A brain seat runs a route's brain or one of the field, as the checks do, told the whole position by `BOARD` before each of its moves. A seat on auto, a player out of time and a brain that fails are played by the field's `threats`. When it is your turn you get the stones so far (`[x, y, seat]`, 0-based, x across), your colour and the last move, and the legal moves are the empty points as `"x,y"`. The finished game is kept as a match.

Try one on your machine, playing black from the terminal against the starter:

```sh
SS_INPUT=$PWD python3 kit/roomcli.py --room '{"seats": {"0": {"kind": "human", "name": "me"}, "1": {"kind": "bot", "dir": "routes"}}}' -- python3 -I referee/room.py
```

## The board

`viewer/` is the 五子棋 board people know from apps: wood, star points, glossy stones, the last move dotted and the winning five lit. It plays replays move by move, and in a room (`viewer/index.html?live`) a person plays by clicking a point. To watch a replay from a clone: `python3 -m http.server`, then open `viewer/index.html?replay=../replays/<file>`.

## Credits

The protocol and the rule are Gomocup's. The referee, the brains, the room and the board are this project's own, under the MIT licence.