Blue and Gray

Alternate Names

Cats and Dogs (2)

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A blue and gray board and eighteen each of black and white counters are required. One of each player's counters are designated "captains" and are required to be specially marked. They are shown here with a star marking. All of the other counters are designated "guards".

History

Blue and Gray was granted a patent in 1903, but possibly was not published until Sid Sackson included it in A Gamut of Games.

Objective

The objective of both players is to move their captain along the outlined path of 17 steps to the center of the board. The first player to do so is the winner. If both captains become blockaded by their opponent and neither player is able to break the impasse the game is won by the player whose captain is farther advanced along the heavy line. Sid Sackson describes further, "In playing a series of games, it is my practice to count a game won in this manner as half a game."

Play

With alternating turns, players move a single friendly counter to a neighboring vacant position. All counters except for the captain can move in any direction, so long as it is along one of the marked lines on the board. Most of the lines are for orthogonal movement, but some lines along the captain's route are diagonal and guards may move (and jump) along those as well. Guards also capture opposing guard counters by short jump to a necessarily vacant position immediately after the counter being jumped. Jumps can be enchained and multiple opposing counters may be captured in one turn with direction changing after each jump. Captures are compulsory if any are available, but it is not required to capture the maximum number of opposing counters. This is the Compulsory Free Capture Rule.

Captains may only move forward along the outlined path. Captains cannot leave the path, nor can they jump, capture, or be captured.

Sources

  1. Sackson, Sid. A Gamut of Games. Castle Books, New Tork, 1969.

  2. Sackson, Sid and Klutz Press. The Book of Classic Board Games. Klutz Press, Palo Alto, CA. 1991. ISBN 0-932592-94-5