
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
A game board consists of $80$ squares, structured in an 8x10 grid, maintaining the alternate coloring of black and white squares as in chess. Given that square $P$ is located at the bottom row and square $Q$ is at the top row in one of the columns directly above $P$'s column, determine how many 9-step paths there are from $P$ to $Q$.

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
user