Nine men's morris

How to play Nine men's morris

The mill game has been played across Europe for more than a thousand years; a board for it is cut into the gaming board found in the Gokstad ship, from around 900.

The rules

• The board is three squares, one inside the other, joined by lines at the middle of each side: twenty-four points where the lines meet. Each player has nine men.
• White begins. First the men are placed: take turns setting one man on any empty point until all eighteen are down.
• Then the men move: one man a turn, along a line to the next empty point. No jumping.
• Three men of one colour in a row along a line make a mill. When you close a mill, take one of your opponent's men off the board. Men standing in a mill are safe unless the opponent has no others.
• Mills count while placing too. A mill may be opened and closed again, and it takes a man every time it closes.
• A player down to three men may fly: move a man to any empty point.
• A player left with two men, or unable to move, has lost.

In this version

• Fifty moves after the placing with no man taken is a draw.
• The machine looks a few moves ahead: men first, then mills, then two in a line with the third point free.

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