In a two-player game, the players move their pieces on a board that is

Question

https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?mode=view&id=62180 In a two-player game, the players move their pieces on a board that is marked off in squares, 5 squares wide and 5 squares deep. The five rows are labeled 1 to 5, and the five columns are labeled A to E. Each square is identified by its row number and column letter (for example, 3C). At the beginning of the game, one player's piece is placed on any of the four corner squares of the board, and the other player's piece is placed in the opposite corner. Players then take turns moving their pieces one square at a time, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The game ends when a player wins by placing his or her piece on the square opposite its starting position. Players may not move their pieces so that they occupy a square adjacent to the opponent's piece, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Abe and Bea are playing the game, and Abe made the first move by placing his piece on 2B. Select the square to which Bea should move her piece to most restrict Abe's choices for where to move his piece on his next turn. Also, assuming that later during the same game, Abe's piece is on 3E and Bea's piece is on 4C, select the square to which Bea should move her piece to ensure that each player has at least three more moves before the game is over. Make only two selections, one in each column. 5.jpg

BEINGRATUL · Answer

Diagonal is the shortest route. To stop Abe to move to 3C , Be a has to play 4D.

For the game to continue three more rounds, be a has to play 5D so that Abe can't move his pieces to 4E and 5E.

daemon_slayer · Answer

The 2nd answer, should be 5C, so that the game ends in 3 more steps from each player. 
For 5D, the game ends in 2 steps

haianh · Answer

I was initially unsure whether “opposite corner” meant straight across or diagonally, but based on the later position information, it appears the q's intends diagonally opposite corners.

Since Abe moved first to B2, we can infer he started at A1. That makes E5 the diagonally opposite corner - Bea’s starting square and Abe’s destination square.
 
  Early Game : Abe’s shortest winning path goes through C3 and D4. Bea should block this route: piece to  D4  
  Later game : Abe is E4 and E5 away from his win. Bea must slow Abe’s progress while maintaining spacing: piece to  D5  (D4 is occupied by Abe's piece).

A 
 B 
 C 
 D 
 E 
 
  1 
  _

2 
  
  a

3

a  
 
  4

b

5

_

PriChat · Answer

Best way to solve these questions is to take help from the options instead of thinking all the possibilities. 
First question is fairly simple and can be solved easily if we visualize that both the players should be sitting diagonally opposite to each other at the top left and bottom right corners
This would mean to block at least one of the space, player can only move diagonally

Second question can make you scratch your head if you start calculating all the scenarios, here it is best to take help from the options. Make a mark on the board for the given options and carefully observe how player A is actually only 2 moves away from winning unless stopped by B. Thus, logically B should block A in this move which eliminates the options - 3B, 3C and 5C. 
Now the remaining options are - 4D and 5D. Given that we can't put moves in the adjacent blocks, 4D is also eliminated as invalid move.

Therefore, 5D is the only solution that's fitting.

In a two-player game, the players move their pieces on a board that is

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First Move	Last Move
		3B
		3C
		4D
		5C
		5D

GMAT Two-part Analysis (TPA) Questions

In a two-player game, the players move their pieces on a board that is

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