Could Chomp be made more fun?

[raman22feb1988]

Chomp 10, as big and beautiful a board it may be to play on, it is not enjoyable as it should be because the win is obvious for the first player (whoever starts the game).
This is the reason why it is so:
Player 'A' starts with the chocolate block to the bottom right of the poisoned piece (at the top left corner). Then, we are left with this horizontal strip and vertical strip.

Now that,

• whatever player 'B' does in the horizontal strip, player 'A' can copy the same thing in the vertical strip.
• whatever player 'B' does in the vertical strip, player 'A' can copy the same thing in the horizontal strip.
  This is true for all square boards (including Chomp Kids).
  By using a computer program, written and analyzed in the Python programming language by myself alone, I had found out that no other winning move exists to start with on the Chomp 10 × 10 board, except for the one that I have mentioned above (and even for the Chomp Kids 4 × 4 board).

So, I suggest doing one or both of these following two things as changes (of course also with input and discussion from other people):

• Make the Chomp 10 board rectangular, i.e. something like 10 × 9 board or 10 × 11 board because in a rectangular board, the winning sequence is not obvious to find out, eventhough anyway that all rectangular boards almost certainly win for the first player (whoever starts the game) only. Along the same lines, it would also be great if the Chomp Kids 4 × 4 board is made rectangular (although, by the way that, who is going to play all the Kids games ever? Because in such a small board, all the winning board positions can be easily memorized since there exist only a few of them!).
• Create a new game called Chomp Custom, in which the size of the board can be selected manually, instead of something already set and fixed before itself. Something like: in which player 'A' chooses the number of rows and player 'B' chooses the number of columns before starting the game. Choosing number of rows or number of columns = 1 or even 2 (usually by player 'A'), in which the win for player 'A' is obvious is not allowed. This need not be restricted to player 'B' because if he chooses board size like that, then he is going to obviously lose the game. Similarly, choosing number of rows = number of columns by player 'B' need not be restricted because if player 'B' does that, then he is going to obviously lose the game. In Musketeer chess, player 'B' can deny the selection of Musketeer chess piece chosen by player 'A'. Then, the choice of Musketeer chess pieces will be Cannon and Leopard. Similar to that, in Chomp Custom also you can have an option for player 'B' to deny the number of rows (or number of columns) selected by player 'A'. Then, the board size will be some default value (to be decided upon!). This option is good to have if player 'A' chooses number of rows (or number of columns) that is an obvious win for player 'A'. But, that means that the players cannot be able to experiment the Chomp game to be played with the other possible board sizes at all, apart from that fixed default value (as I had mentioned above). At best, in my humble opinion, choosing number of rows or number of columns = 1 or even 2 (usually by player 'A'), in which the win for player 'A' is obvious is NOT allowed.

The game would not change if the number of rows and the number of columns are interchanged.

A perfect Γ-shaped board position is losing for the player whosoever turn it is, because:

• whatever one player does in the horizontal strip, their opponent can copy the same thing in the vertical strip.
• whatever one player does in the vertical strip, their opponent can copy the same thing in the horizontal strip.

Similarly that, a board position with n chocolate blocks on the first row (or column) and n-1 chocolate blocks on the second row (or column) is losing for the player whosoever turn it is, because:

• whatever number of chocolate blocks one player takes from the first row (or column), their opponent can take the same number of chocolate blocks from the second row (or column).
• whatever number of chocolate blocks one player takes from the second row (or column), their opponent can take the same number of chocolate blocks from the first row (or column).