Three men's morris

Three men's morris

Three men's morris is an abstract strategy game played on a three by three board (counting lines) that is similar to tic-tac-toe. It is also related to six men's morris and nine-men's-morris. A player wins by forming a mill, that is, three of their own pieces in a row.

Rules thumb|240px|A board for three men's morris. This pattern has been found carved into the roof of the temple of Kurna.

Each player has three pieces. The winner is the first player to align their three pieces on a line drawn on the board. There are 3 horizontal lines, 3 vertical lines and 2 diagonal lines.

The board is empty to begin the game, and players take turns placing their pieces on empty intersections. Once all pieces are placed (assuming there is no winner by then), play proceeds with each player moving one of their pieces per turn. A piece may move to any vacant point on the board, not just an adjacent one.

According to H. J. R. Murray’s A History of Chess, there is an alternative version in which pieces may not move to any vacant point, but only to any adjacent linked empty position, i.e. from a corner to the middle of an adjacent edge, from the middle of an edge to the center or an adjacent corner, or from the center to the middle of an edge. Murray calls the first version "nine holes" and the second version "three men's morris" or "the smaller merels".

History According to R. C. Bell, the earliest known board for the game includes diagonal lines and was "cut into the roofing slabs of the temple at Kurna in Egypt"; he estimated a date for them of  BCE. When played on this board, the game is called tapatan in the Philippines and luk tsut k'i ('six man chess') in China. It is thought that luk tsut k'i was played during the time of Confucius, c. 500 BCE. Centuries later, the game was mentioned in Ovid's Ars Amatoria, according to R. C. Bell.

The name of the game may be related to Morris dances (and hence to Moorish). However, according to Daniel King, "the word 'morris' has nothing to do with the old English dance of the same name. It comes from the Latin word , which means a counter or gaming piece."

Related games * Six men's morris and [[nine-men's-morris]] use six and nine pieces, respectively, and are played on different boards. * In [[tic-tac-toe]], pieces are placed (or marks are made) until the board is full; if neither player has an orthogonal or diagonal line at this point, the game is a draw. * Extended tic-tac-toe, like the three men's morris game, each player has three pieces, but when moving pieces, players must first move their first pieces, then the second pieces, then the third pieces, then the first pieces, and so on. This game is harder than both tic-tac-toe and three men's morris, but the first player has a way to win by taking the edge first. Alternatively, by taking the center or corner first, the game will be drawn. Tapatan*, from the Philippines, the same game with additional rule that pieces can only move to adjacent spaces. Marelle*, from France, the same game with additional rule that pieces can only move to adjacent spaces and the center space (central intersection point) cannot be used until after each player drops their first piece. Tant Fant*, from India, the same game with additional rule that pieces can only move to adjacent spaces and the pieces are already dropped before the game is started. Achi*, from Ghana, the same game with additional rule that pieces can only move to adjacent spaces, and each player has four (instead of three) pieces. Picaria*, a Native American variation invented in New Mexico, adds diagonal attachments to the central edge points, yielding four additional interior points each located between the center and corner points, may have 9 or 13 spaces, the center space (central intersection point) cannot be used until after each player drops their first piece (a variant is the center space cannot be used after all pieces are dropped). Rota* is an allegedly Roman-era variation of this game played on a circular board, codified in an article published in 1916 by Latin scholar Elmer Truesdell Merrill. See also Shisima, a Kenyan variant.

References ## External links * Play [Three Men's Morris online](https://www.three-mens-morris.com/) with another person as real-time browser game

Further reading *