View Top Row, Open Flag Winning Game files at Gravon Stratego Archive site

I did an analysis on almost 85,000 Stratego game board setups, from the Gravon Stratego archive files, to find out how players fared with open flags on the top row.  I did not count the 4 positions behind the lakes.  Here are the results:

	Total Wins	Total Games	Win Percentage
Player 1 Center Squares	3	35	8.57%
Player 2 Center Squares	5	34	8.82%
Player 1 Outside Wings	57	169	33.73%
Player 2 Outside Wings	54	140	38.57%
Player 1 Inside  Wings	10	34	29.41%
Player 2 Inside Wings	3	34	8.82%

Most of the time the players lost with open flags on the top row.  It's incredibly difficult to win with a flag on the 2 center squares or the 2 inside columns on the far sides.  Winning was a lot easier on the top row on the outside wings, but still below 50%.  In the stats above, Player 1 is the player that moves first.  Player 2 moves second.  Going 2nd should be a little harder to win, because your opponent has 2 chances to win the game by scouting your flag in 1 move.  But that was only the case on the inside columns.  In the stats above, I only counted the wins, not losses or ties.  There were a few draws in these games, but most of the time the players with open flags on the front row lost.  The winning stats are a little inflated too because some of the "wins" were from players quitting after the 1st move or leaving the game.  Also, in a few games, both players had flags on the top row.

The files below were the winning games with flags in the center front top row(2 middle squares):
classic-2005.10-3351.xml
classic-2005.11-7392.xml
classic-2006.0-313.xml
classic-2006.2-7249.xml
classic-2006.4-1615.xml
classic-2006.4-5912.xml
classic-2014.10-2664.xml
classic-2014.5-138.xml

The files below were the winning games with flags on the top row on the outside(left and right) wings:
classic-2005.10-1263.xml
classic-2005.10-1955.xml
classic-2005.10-2816.xml
classic-2005.10-3510.xml
classic-2005.10-4479.xml
classic-2005.10-4521.xml
classic-2005.10-5217.xml
classic-2005.10-5659.xml
classic-2005.10-5716.xml
classic-2005.10-5895.xml
classic-2005.10-6141.xml
classic-2005.10-622.xml
classic-2005.10-6530.xml
classic-2005.10-6854.xml
classic-2005.10-6972.xml
classic-2005.10-7710.xml
classic-2005.10-7795.xml
classic-2005.10-8249.xml
classic-2005.10-832.xml
classic-2005.11-1299.xml
classic-2005.11-2067.xml
classic-2005.11-2573.xml
classic-2005.11-3241.xml
classic-2005.11-3400.xml
classic-2005.11-3838.xml
classic-2005.11-5832.xml
classic-2005.11-6271.xml
classic-2005.11-6645.xml
classic-2005.11-7177.xml
classic-2005.11-7531.xml
classic-2005.11-781.xml
classic-2005.11-958.xml
classic-2005.9-1694.xml
classic-2005.9-2492.xml
classic-2005.9-2596.xml
classic-2005.9-2886.xml
classic-2005.9-4194.xml
classic-2005.9-433.xml
classic-2005.9-6431.xml
classic-2005.9-6933.xml
classic-2006.0-1743.xml
classic-2006.0-2034.xml
classic-2006.0-2723.xml
classic-2006.0-3633.xml
classic-2006.0-3642.xml
classic-2006.0-4614.xml
classic-2006.0-7565.xml
classic-2006.0-766.xml
classic-2006.0-827.xml
classic-2006.1-1852.xml
classic-2006.1-221.xml
classic-2006.1-3422.xml
classic-2006.1-3524.xml
classic-2006.1-3909.xml
classic-2006.1-6986.xml
classic-2006.1-7192.xml
classic-2006.1-8080.xml
classic-2006.2-1035.xml
classic-2006.2-1089.xml
classic-2006.2-1417.xml
classic-2006.2-1987.xml
classic-2006.2-4249.xml
classic-2006.2-5344.xml
classic-2006.2-6258.xml
classic-2006.2-688.xml
classic-2006.2-753.xml
classic-2006.2-7947.xml
classic-2006.2-8304.xml
classic-2006.4-2647.xml
classic-2006.4-3438.xml
classic-2006.4-5258.xml
classic-2006.4-5414.xml
classic-2006.4-6668.xml
classic-2006.4-672.xml
classic-2006.5-2435.xml
classic-2006.5-2471.xml
classic-2006.5-2627.xml
classic-2006.5-3301.xml
classic-2006.5-4299.xml
classic-2006.5-5152.xml
classic-2006.5-6649.xml
classic-2006.5-6736.xml
classic-2006.5-6762.xml
classic-2006.7-5232.xml
classic-2006.7-6061.xml
classic-2014.0-211.xml
classic-2014.0-2250.xml
classic-2014.10-1946.xml
classic-2014.11-1590.xml
classic-2014.11-2206.xml
classic-2014.11-296.xml
classic-2014.4-2099.xml
classic-2014.4-2154.xml
classic-2014.4-985.xml
classic-2014.5-1225.xml
classic-2014.5-1335.xml
classic-2014.5-1611.xml
classic-2014.5-1810.xml
classic-2014.5-2152.xml
classic-2014.5-2163.xml
classic-2014.6-672.xml
classic-2014.6-993.xml
classic-2014.7-690.xml
classic-2014.8-515.xml
classic-2014.9-1868.xml
classic-2014.9-409.xml
classic-2014.9-498.xml
classic-2014.9-688.xml
classic-2015.1-1285.xml
classic-2015.1-1506.xml
classic-2015.2-1415.xml

The files below were the winning games with flags on the top row on the inside(left and right) wings:
classic-2005.10-4535.xml
classic-2005.10-4904.xml
classic-2005.10-6378.xml
classic-2005.10-7093.xml
classic-2005.9-195.xml
classic-2005.9-4596.xml
classic-2005.9-6508.xml
classic-2006.0-6787.xml
classic-2006.2-1642.xml
classic-2006.5-2677.xml
classic-2006.7-5644.xml
classic-2014.4-115.xml
classic-2015.1-2360.xml

You can find the stratego game files at the archive site on Gravon:
http://www.gravon.de/strados2/files/

You can find the player to view the files at this link: http://www.gravon.de/gravon/stratego/strados2.jsp

Some of these games are very interesting to watch.  I would not recommend playing with open flags on the 2 center squares or inside wings.  It's too difficult to win.  Playing with the flag on the outside wings is much, much easier to win.  In fact, it's a lot of fun.  In the future, I'll write a post giving tips on how to win those games provided you survive the first couple of moves.