2048: How to continue when forced to go in the wrong direction
What's the best way to continue, if one was forced to move in the wrong direction and a 2 spawned at the opposite side of a large number row?
Example:

The last state was all tiles one piece below except for the lower 2 which didn't exist. There was only one moved allowed: upwards, which created an empty row at the bottom into which a 2 spawned.
In this situation, I usually don't las any much longer, because going down again disrupts everything. What is the best way to continue?
I know different algorithms, but most of them are for machines. And the "monotonicity-smoothness-free tiles" approach doesn't work here.
Best Answer
Go straight down.
If you go left or right or even up again, the small tiles will spawn under the larger tiles and you will have nothing to merge them with.
If you go down straight away you will still have 2's, 4's and 8's to merge with.
For example:
In this case, the only possible move is up.

When you go up a small tile will spawn, don't worry, just go down again so that no more small tiles spawn at the bottom.

After you go down the small tile will still be there, but you can still continue with the game ignoring it, usually after making a few moves you will be able to get rid of it.


I used this game as an example, it works the same way with big tiles like 1024's, 2048's and even 4096's. It's almost never impossible to get out of a situation like this, you just need to think about each move before you do it.
Pictures about "2048: How to continue when forced to go in the wrong direction"



How do you reverse a move in 2048?
Join the numbers and get to the 2048 tile! Hit 'Z' to take back one or more moves.What is the trick to beat 2048?
The game is won when a tile with a value of 2048 appears on the board. Players can continue beyond that to reach higher scores. When the player has no legal moves (there are no empty spaces and no adjacent tiles with the same value), the game ends.How To Beat 2048 (Best Strategy Tips For Beating 2048 Game Tile)
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Images: Gustavo Fring, Matteo Basile, Ono Kosuki, Blue Bird
