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
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. T ...
. It is also related to six men's morris and
nine men's morris
Nine men's Morris is a strategy board game for two players dating at least to the Roman Empire. The game is also known as nine-man morris, mill, mills, the mill game, merels, merrills, merelles, marelles, morelles, and ninepenny marl in English. ...
. A player wins by forming a mill, that is, three of their own pieces in a row.
Rules
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 ''
A History of Chess
The book ''A History of Chess'' was written by H. J. R. Murray (1868–1955) and published in 1913.
Details
Murray's aim is threefold: to present as complete a record as is possible of the varieties of chess that exist or have existed in differen ...
'', 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.
H. J. R. Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray (24 June 1868 – 16 May 1955) was a British educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. His book, ''A History of Chess'', is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive his ...
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
Kurna (also Gourna, Gurna, Qurna, Qurnah or Qurneh; ar, القرنة) are various spelling for a group of three closely related villages (New Qurna, Qurna and Sheikh ‘Adb el-Qurna) located on the West Bank of the River Nile opposite the moder ...
in Egypt"; he estimated a date for them of
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
.
However, Friedrich Berger wrote that some of the diagrams at Kurna include
Coptic cross
The Coptic cross refers to a number of Christian cross variants associated in some way with Coptic Christians.
Typical form
The typical form of the "Coptic cross" used in the Coptic Church is made up of two bold lines of equal length that inte ...
es, making it "doubtful" that the diagrams date to 1400 BCE. Berger concluded, "certainly they cannot be dated."
When played on this board, the game is called ''tapatan'' in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
and ''luk tsut k'i'' ('six man chess') in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
It is thought that ''luk tsut k'i'' was played during the time of
Confucius
Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...
, c. 500 BCE. Centuries later, the game was mentioned in
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
's ''
Ars Amatoria
The ''Ars amatoria'' ( en, The Art of Love) is an instructional elegy series in three books by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. It was written in 2 AD.
Background
Book one of ''Ars amatoria'' was written to show a man how to find a woman. In book tw ...
'', according to R. C. Bell.
In book III (c. 8 CE), after discussing , a popular board game, Ovid wrote:
There is another game divided into as many parts as there are months in the year. A table has three pieces on either side; the winner must get all the pieces in a straight line. It is a bad thing for a woman not to know how to play, for love often comes into being during play.
Boards were carved into the
cloister
A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...
seats at the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
cathedral
A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...
s at
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour.
...
,
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
,
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
,
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
and
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
; the game was quite popular in England in the 13th century.
These boards used holes, not lines, to represent the nine spaces on the board—hence the name ''nine-holes''—and forming a diagonal row did not win the game.
The name of the game may be related to
Morris dance
Morris dancing is a form of English folk dance. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers, usually wearing bell pads on their shins. Implements such as sticks, swords and handkerchiefs may ...
s (and hence to
Moorish
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or se ...
). 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
Nine men's Morris is a strategy board game for two players dating at least to the Roman Empire. The game is also known as nine-man morris, mill, mills, the mill game, merels, merrills, merelles, marelles, morelles, and ninepenny marl in English. ...
use six and nine pieces, respectively, and are played on different boards.
* In
tic-tac-toe
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. T ...
, pieces are placed (or marks are made) until the board is full; if neither player has an
orthogonal
In mathematics, orthogonality is the generalization of the geometric notion of ''perpendicularity''.
By extension, orthogonality is also used to refer to the separation of specific features of a system. The term also has specialized meanings in ...
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, …, this game is harder than both tic-tac-toe and three men's morris, but the first player has a way to win, if he take the edge first, then he can win, if he take the center or the corner first, then the game will be draw.
* ''Tapatan'', from
Philippine
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, the same game with additional rule that pieces can only move to adjacent spaces.
* ''Marelle'', from
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, 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
Tant Fant is a two-player abstract strategy game from India. It is related to tic-tac-toe, but more closely related to three men's morris, Nine Holes, Achi, Shisima, and Dara, because pieces are moved on the board to create the 3 in-a-row. It is ...
'', from
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, 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
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
, the same game with additional rule that pieces can only move to adjacent spaces, and each player has four (instead of three) pieces.
* ''
Picaria
Picaria is a two-player abstract strategy game from the Zuni Native American Indians or the Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest. It is related to tic-tac-toe, but more related to three men's morris, Nine Holes, Achi, Tant Fant, and Shisim ...
'', 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).
References
External links
* Pla
Three Men's Morris onlinewith another person as real-time browser game
Further reading
*
{{Tic-Tac-Toe
Morris games
Solved games