The New Zealand Herald

Board game boffin knows the best ways to win

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Was it Mrs White in the kitchen with the lead piping or Colonel Mustard in the dining room with the candlestic­k?

The chance of you working it out may depend more on the Cluedo character you choose to play as than your powers of deduction.

Marcus du Sautoy, a professor of mathematic­s at the University of Oxford believes playing as Mrs Peacock, the character that starts off closest to the most rooms on the board, maximises the chance of success.

He has also calculated that orange properties are the best to buy when playing Monopoly as they are close to the “Jail” square.

This square is more likely to be landed on than any other on the board as players can land on it, draw a card sending them directly to jail, or be punished by being sent to jail after throwing three doubles.

Players leaving jail have a higher probabilit­y of throwing scores of 6, 7 or 8 and are therefore more likely to land on an orange property.

du Sautoy, who presented the series Mind Games on BBC4 until 2006, told the Mail: “Bubbling under every game there is a piece of interestin­g mathematic­s. So if you understand the underlying maths, it’s going to give you an edge.

“That’s why my family have stopped playing games with me.”

In his book, Around the World in 80 Games, which was published this year, Prof du Sautoy has also included advice from computer scientist Barry Smyth about the best means of winning Wordle.

Guessing the word “cones” followed by “trial” leads to a successful outcome in 96 per cent of games.

While literary fans may feel they have the edge in Scrabble, mathematic­s helps to ensure a win there too.

Players who know many high-scoring two-letter words are likely to win.

When playing Battleship­s, he advises that hiding one’s battleship­s in one area instead of spreading them out is the best strategy.

Speaking to Spanish newspaper El Pais du Sautoy said: “Games are a very powerful way to explain what mathematic­s is good for”.

“It’s not about long division or percentage­s but about understand­ing a structure and how to navigate that structure in the most efficient way.”

He added games were an excellent way of testing AI capabiliti­es.

“Games are very conducive places to test artificial intelligen­ce, primarily because games have a unique quality: they are self-contained, pleasant worlds,” he said.

“The crucial aspect of a game is that it is separate; it’s its own space and, at the same time, it’s an excellent place to allow artificial intelligen­ce to unfold safely and showcase its capabiliti­es . . . artificial intelligen­ce has taught us a superior way to play the game. So, that’s exciting.”

 ?? ?? Orange properties are the best to buy in Monopoly, mathematic­ian Marcus du Sautoy reckons.
Orange properties are the best to buy in Monopoly, mathematic­ian Marcus du Sautoy reckons.

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