Abalone (board game) computer-to-computer competition held in 2003 at the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) events in Graz, Austria, the AbaPro program defeated the Nacre program. In 1999, a number of top players from the Mind Sports Olympiad signed an agreement to use a different starting position (the Belgian daisy) to revitalize the game. This has been used for top tournaments since then, including the AbaCup. Abalone (board game) Abalone is an award-winning two-player abstract strategy board game designed by Michel Lalet and Laurent Lévi in 1987. Players are represented by opposing black and white marbles on a hexagonal board with the objective
British and World Marbles Championship diameter of approximately 12mm (half an inch). Two teams of six players of any age, gender or skill level, take turns using the tip of the finger to aim and project the "tolley", a larger marble (commonly referred to as the "shooter" or "taw"), which is a glass or ceramic sphere of 18mm diameter (three-quarters of an inch), deploying top spin, back spin and side spin, to drive other marbles out of the ring. A player's knuckle must be touching the ground when shooting, known as "knuckling down". Moving the tolley closer to the target marbles, known as "cabbaging", is