Intermediate/Advanced Exercise: Seeing all possibilities
I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.
-- Thomas Edison
Contents
Introduction
Chain flexibility is one of the most important skills in Puyo Puyo. Depending on the opponent's circumstance, it may be best to chain long and efficiently, or maybe it is best to chain a short and surprising hellfire. Sometimes, its important to be able to do both! To start with a long-and-efficient chain, transform it into a hellfire, but then transform the hellfire BACK into an efficient chain.
This is perhaps one of the most difficult skills in Puyo Puyo to learn. While the "Universe" form formalizes this concept of chain-flexibility, the surprise Hellfires and Thorns may come up by shear luck, and its important to learn to recognize them as they come up.
This page will list some builds to help improve your chain-flexibility. Given the original base, are you able to see how a chain can grow into many different possibilities? And after you see these possibilities, will you be able to analyze your opponent's board and pick out the best future for yourself?
About these examples
I'm unfortunately not a very strong player. However, I do have the ability to write some interesting computer programs that allowed me to generate these examples. If these chains seem "inhuman", that's because they are! However, these chains seem like they follow the rules of extensions. I hope that by sharing these computer-examples, we as a community can become stronger at recognizing these main-chain -> hellfire -> denial back into main-chain examples more readily.
I'll rate an example as "Beginner", "Intermediate", or "Advanced".
- Beginner -- Beginners aren't strong enough to care about chain-flexibility yet, and are mostly concerned with seeing just the one obvious extension plan for a particular chain.
- Intermediate -- Harassment (Thorn or Hellfire) is beginning to be useful, but only if abort to the main-chain, or main-chain followups, are simple and obvious.
- Advanced -- Chain-plans may dramatically change. Chain-form mastery of many forms is required.
Example A
A simple GTR start, but things can get silly!
https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/6z1ko
Natural GTR
- Beginner skill level
- https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/fZX4V
Right-to-Left Inverted
- Sometimes the colors just don't work out. Learning to invert a GTR and pop it backwards can be a useful skill when color droughts or color floods occur.
- Intermediate skill level
- https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/QyzZf
Thorn + Aborted through GTR option
- Advanced skill level -- This Thorn example destroys the GTR-initial plan. But an advanced player will be confident in being able to rebuild into a good chain regardless.
- Thorn: https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/EmAn7
- Aborted Thorn : https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/epbii
+ Abort: 
Thorn Accepted Power3 Followup
- Advanced skill level -- If the Thorn was successful in sealing in the opponent's chain, repeated powerful harassment followups can seal in the win.
- https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/bEdct
Thorn Accepted Main-chain Followup
- Advanced skill level -- If the opponent is good at digging, it may be more beneficial to instead rebuild a main-chain of some kind. We've strayed very far away from the GTR at this point, even if GTR was our initial plan.
Hellfire + Rebuild to GTR
- Intermediate skill level -- A GTR was transformed into a Hellfire, and then the followup was converted into a GTR again.
- Hellfire: https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/LoTpG
- Rebuild: https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/o2dFL
Hellfire Abort back into GTR main-chain
- Intermediate / Advanced skill level -- Can you convert the Hellfire back into a GTR without popping it? Immediately before popping the Hellfire, look at the opponent. Are they vulnerable? Or did they suddenly build a high-and-defensive counter formation? If the opponent is looking very defensive, abort the Hellfire and start building a main-chain again.
https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/AvLJm
Hellfire Abort back into GTR main-chain into Hellfire
- Intermediate / Advanced skill level -- Hey, it could happen! If the opponent's chain was initially defensive, but took a risky extension later on, maybe the time to harass is now (and not earlier).
https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/tMWUH
Hellfire Abort2
- Advanced skill level -- This advanced build traversed many forms: GTR initially, then a Hellfire, but finalized as a Submarine. Similar to Abort#1, but with a new chain plan instead.
- Aborted Hellfire: https://puyonexus.com/chainsim/chain/LyS2D
+ Aborted 
