Nine Holes

Alternate Names

Driesticken (Holland), Kleine mühlenspiel (Germany), San-noku-narabe (Japan), Chikkiri (Ainu of Hokkaido Japan)

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

Historical specimens and most modern examples of this board game are played with a grid of 3x3 small holes in a wood board and three each of pegs of a distinctive color. The game can also be played on a board that is simply drawn on paper but counters of some sort will probably be required as they will move on the board after placing. For our purposes here, I will use a simple 2x2 square grid with the counters placed at the nine intersections of the board for play.

History

This game may have been derived as a simplified version of Three Men's Morris, but its simplicity shows that it could easily have been derived independently of any other game, possibly at different times and places. It is likely the precursor to Tic Tac Toe (Noughts & Crosses), which is yet another simplification that does not involve movement. In the British Isles, boards for this game dating back to the 13th century can be found in several cathedrals including Canterbury, Gloucester, Norwich, Salisbury, and Westminster Abbey, indicating its popularity with monks of the time. Some surviving journals from the period indicate that the monks were occasionally punished for playing the game and it may have only been played in secret, possibly as a means for gambling. The exact same or very similar game has been played, at least historically, in Arab lands, in India and Sri Lanka, and in Japan. Called Chikkiri by the Ainu, it is the only traditional board game played by them.

Objective

The first player to get three counters in a straight, orthogonal line is the winner. Diagonal rows do not count in this game.

Play

The game commences with the board empty of counters. Each player has three counters of a distinctive color, and they alternate turns placing them on any of the nine holes (here, intersections) that are vacant, until all six counters are on the board. Then each player, in turn, may orthogonally move one of their own counters to an adjacent vacant intersection. The first player to form an orthogonal row of three during the drop phase or the movement phase wins the game.

Strategy

Variations

Sources