General Strategy:

1. First, do no harm.  Remember that the goal is not to build the longest line you can; the goal is to build a longer line than your opponent.  If a proposed play adds as many tiles to your opponent's line as to your own, you are not making progress.  It is particularly important to consider if incidental tiles of your opponent's color will fall where they can easily be used.

 
2. Tantrix Tile Set = Deck of Cards.  A standard deck has 52 cards. The tantrix tile set has 56 tiles.  Everybody "knows" all 52 cards, and can tell you which are useful or not useful in a particular situation.  For example, serious bridge players can tell you at any time which cards have been played, by whom, and where the unseen cards probably lie. You should be as familiar with the tiles.

 
3. Watch your opponent's tiles.  The difference between a calculated risk and a blunder is if your opponent already has the tiles he needs to do what you hope he won't be able to do.

 
4. Try to make good moves better.  After you find a good move, try to make it better by turning the move you've selected into a forced move.  There is little risk in forcing your own tiles.

 
5. Choice is good.  Other things being equal, play to maximize the number of tiles you will be able to play.  If you get to choose, you can choose in your favor.

 

1. Do not extend your line into a controlled side.  You never know how long you will be blocked.

 
2. Count tiles when you create a forced space.  You could be creating a permanently blocked space as early as the middle of the game. Permanent blocks become reasonably likely when there are 10 tiles left.

 
3. Always extend your longest line toward shorter lines, never extend short lines toward longer lines

 

Basic tactics tells us that there are either 5 or 6 tiles that fit any forced space, and knowing the number of tiles remaining is absolutely essential; but knowing exactly what tiles remain is even better.

• If the "tiles remaining" count is zero, then of course all the effort to identify the exact tile is wasted, except if you find yourself counting the same tile twice, you'll know you've made a mistake.  It happens a lot, especially at first!.
• If the tiles remaining count is at least 1, then you know the "lay" of the tiles and whether they are good or bad for the connections you are concerned about.
• If you know the exact tiles that are still available, you can create (or avoid creating!) non obvious look alike spaces based on all 6 edges.
• If you know the exact tiles that might fill a forced space, you can look ahead to the next forced space and try to arrange for it to be blocked (or unblocked, whatever is desirable).

The key to counting exact tiles is to have a system to pigeonhole the tiles on the board by assigning them a number, rather than trying to remember the shapes you've seen.  After much experimentation, here is my system.

 

Identify the pattern clockwise around the forced space. So the pattern is one of A-B-C  A-B-B  A-A-B  or  A-B-A.  Follow the lines of the first color in the pattern with your eye, looking for pattern matches.  When you find a match, note the overall configuration as one of the 5 or 6 possibilities for the pattern and remember the set of matches you have seen.

 

Three Sided Spaces (there are 5 tiles) Discriminate first on which color is straight, or if none are straight, the shape of the first color. For example that the three colors are Red-Green-Blue clockwise from red. Number them 1-5 as follows.
1. Red (the first color) is Straight.	2. Green (the second color) is Straight	3. Blue (the third color) is Straight	4. Red (the first color) is curved.	5. Red (the first color) is a corner.

 

Two Sided Spaces with A-A-B or A-B-B pattern (there are 6 tiles) Discriminate on the identity of the third color, and then on the shape of the single color.  For example if the pattern is Red-Red-Green, we need to know if the other color on the tile is Blue or Yellow, and since Green occurs once in the pattern, if the green line is straight, curved or a corner.  The trickiest bit is to decide how to count the tiles with blue verses tiles with yellow.  For me, the natural order is Red-Green-Blue-Yellow, so if the pattern is R-R-G the "third color" is blue and the "fourth color" is yellow.
1. Blue is the other color, Green line is straight.	2. Blue is the other color, Green line is curved.	3. Blue is the other color, Green line is a corner.	4. Yellow is the other color, Green line is straight.	5. Yellow is the other color, Green line is curved.	6. Yellow is the other color, Green line is a corner.

 

Two Sided Spaces with A-B-A pattern (there are 6 tiles)  Discriminate first on the the identity of the third color, and then on the shape of the single color (just as in the previous case), except that the shape of the single color is curve left, straight, or curve right.  If the pattern is red-green-red, the "third color" is blue and the "fourth color" is yellow.
1. Blue is the other color, Green line is straight.	2. Blue is the other color, Green line is curved left.	3. Blue is the other color, Green line is curved right.	4. Yellow is the other color, Green line is straight.	5. Yellow is the other color, Green line is curved left.	6. Yellow is the other color, Green line is curved right.

I don't believe this system is perfect or even uniquely good, but the key thing is that you don't have to remember a lot of things at once.  The memory part of the process is not as hard as remembering a phone number long enough to dial it.   The rest of the trick is just to have a mechanical system to build the phone number as you see matching tiles.

How often does this help?  Once or twice per game on the average.

Tales of Joy And Sorrow

Even if you follow these rules, experience is the best teacher.  Practice, and learn.

• even good plans can go bad.
• trapping the last tile
• the perfect block