Nine Men's Morris

Nine Men's Morris is played on the triple mill board and commences with the board vacant of counters.

Alternate Names

Mill (UK), Nine-penny Madell (England), Puzzle-Pound (England), Muhle (Germany),Merelles (France), Linea (Italy), Molenspel (Holland), Tanc (Romania), Yih (China), Naukhadi (Western India). Morris is derived from Merelles which is a Latin word for counters.

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A Triple Mill board and nine each of black and white counters are required for play.

History

There were several game boards incised into the stone roofing slabs of the Temple of Kurna at the ancient city of Thebes on the Nile River. This temple is believed to be constructed around 1350 BCE, during the reigns of Rameses I and Seti I. Of these boards, there is one pattern exactly like the board shown here. Archaeological artifacts of whole or partial remains of boards of this game have also been discovered in Ceylon dating to the reign of Mahadathika Maha-Naga, CE 9-21; in Bronze Age tombs in Cr Bri Chualann (Bray), Co. Wickow, Ireland; from the lowest levels of the first city of Troy; in the vestiges of a Viking funerary boat at Gokstad, Norway, dating c. CE 900; and in many other places.

Nine Men’s Morris is mentioned in literature dating to CE 1283: a manuscript by the Spaniard, Alfonso the Wise. The game is also mentioned in the Jewish Talmud and in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

From the 14th century in Europe the game of Nine Men’s Morris was often produced in a set of three games that also included Chess and Backgammon. Typically, a rather ornate box had a board for chess inscribed on one side, a board for nine men’s morris inscribed on the other, and a drawer that slides out with the pieces for all the games inside along with a backgammon board painted on the inside of it. This tradition continues to some extent even today.

Objective

The objective is to reduce your opponent’s counters from nine to two or to immobilize your opponent’s counters so that they are unable to make a legal move.

Play

Each player commences the game with nine counters of one color in-hand. Alternate turns entail the placement of a single counter of your color at any vacant position on the board or the movement of a single counter of your color along a line to an adjacent vacant position. There is no jumping. During placement and movement of the counters, players attempt to make horizontal or vertical rows of three counters of their color along any line. Such a formation is here called a “mill”. Of course, there can be no diagonal mills in this game. Upon forming a mill of their own counters, a player is entitled to capture any one of their opponent’s counters on the board, so long as that captured counter is not itself part of a mill. Any mill that has been formed by a player may be broken by that player to be reformed later, capturing another counter.

The player placing the first counter is given considerable advantage in this game and to be fair the game should be played twice or any even number of times with the first move alternating between players.

Strategy

First, a good defense: if your opponent forms a mill, you should try and block the counters of that mill from moving in and out of the mill and taking one of your counters every time.

Notice the three sequentially smaller squares that make up the playing board. While placing counters, try to place two at opposite corners of any empty square. This will guarantee at least one mill to be formed for you. On the next move place a counter at an empty corner on the same square. The potential is now there for two mills to be made and your opponent can only block one of them. Conversely, watch out for this trap to be created by your opponent.

Try to create a vacant node next to a mill you have formed. This will allow you to move a counter in and out of that mill, easily capturing an opponent’s counter every time. Even better, is a devastating formation that enables a player to alternate the same counter between two mills, making a nearly unstoppable series of captures. This formation is so noticeably devastating that German players of old even coined a term for it—Zwickmühle. Conversely, try to stop your opponent from making such a structure. Another dangerous structure is the Krossmylna or Running Jenny, where a player forms a cross of four counters, enclosing a central vacant position. With this formation, one is able to move any counter in and out of a mill. Incomplete

Variations

A "flying" rule is often incorporated which allows a player whose counters have been reduced to three in number to move (fly), on their turn, a single friendly counter to any vacant node on the board, even if it is not connected to his current position. This, of course, makes a come-back from even a devastating loss much more likely.

Sources