Match 3 Game algorithm Part 2 - How to detect there is a match?

With the game element terminology, we are ready to jump into the core of the game - Matches detection. It is the most fundamental yet critical puzzle.

So, the question: Provided a matrix of 8x8 consisting of random items, how to detect if there is a match?

And here comes the 1^st statement (from androidgamify blogspot :) )

Statement 1:
- Every match (vertical or horizontal) is detected at the node located at the smallest n^th of tile.

What does that mean?

For example, the picture below shows a matrix with a number of matches. (Assume that you design your match-3 game in such a way that there could be matches at the initial stage)

From the observation, there is a horizontal match of the green nodes located at the tile 8^th, 9^th and 10^th, and a vertical match of the blue nodes located at the tile 35^th, 43^th, 51^th. (Just focus on these two first).

Based on the statement, while scanning the matrix nodes 1 by 1, the green match has to be detected at the 8^th, while the blue match is to be detected at the 35^th. With this systematic checking, we can effectively avoid redundancy.

Hence, generally speaking we can deduce the matching algorithm as below:
To detect the vertical matching, we only need to scan the nodes which are from the row 0^th to 5^th.

And to detect the horizontal matching, the nodes to be scanned are from the column 0^th to 5^th.

These make sense, considering the fact that only at the green nodes we are able to detect the matching of the specified orientation.

Here's the pseudo-code:
a) Vertical matching

- foreach node n^th
  if it is at more than 5^th row, skip
  else check if n^th equal to (n+8)^th, (n+2*8)^th, (n+3*8)^th, (n+4*8)^th to determine how many nodes in  the matching.

b) Horizontal matching

- foreach node n^th
  if it is at more than 5^th column, skip
  else check if n^th equal to (n+1)^th, (n+2)^th, (n+3)^th, (n+4)^th to determine how many nodes in  the matching.

Coming up next: How to detect if there is no more match?