Nine Men's Morris game
You can play it live here
The board consists of a grid with twenty-four points. Each player has nine pieces, or "men". The goal is to form 'mills'. A mill is a line of three men alined (horizontally or vertically). A mill allows you to remove an opponent's man from the game. A player wins by reducing the opponent to two pieces, or by leaving him without a legal move.
The game proceeds in three phases:
- Placing - Placing men on vacant points
- Moving - Moving men to adjacent points
- (optional phase) Flying - Moving men to any vacant point when a player has been reduced to three men
The game begins with an empty board. The players take turns placing their men one per play on empty points. If a player is able to place three of his pieces in a straight line, vertically or horizontally, he has formed a mill and may remove one of his opponent's pieces from the board and the game. Any piece can be chosen for the removal, but a piece not in an opponent's mill must be selected, if possible
Players continue to alternate moves, this time moving a man to an adjacent point. A piece may not "jump" another piece. Players continue to try to form mills and remove their opponent's pieces in the same manner as in phase one. A player may "break" a mill by moving one of his pieces out of an existing mill, then moving the piece back to form the same mill a second time (or any number of times), each time removing one of his opponent's men. The act of removing an opponent's man is sometimes called "pounding" the opponent. When one player has been reduced to three men, phase three begins.
When a player is reduced to three pieces, there is no longer a limitation of moving to only adjacent points: The player's men may "fly" from any point to any vacant point.
Tie can occurs in 3 cases:
- 50 moves without any mills created
- 10 moves when both player only have 3 men
- The board is in the exact same position for 3 times