Nine Men's Morris

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See also: Mühle (German)


Nine Men's Morris is an abstract strategy board game for two players that emerged from the Roman Empire. The game is also known as Nine Man Morris, Mill, Mills, Merels, Merelles, and Merrills in English. As it is played almost everywhere in Europe, the game has, in fact, as many names as there are European languages: Mühle in German, Jeu du Moulin or Mérelles in French, Mulino in Italian, Mølle in Danish, and Młynek in Polish to give just a few examples. Related games are known in Mongolia (Gurgaldaj), India (Nao-guti, Sujjua, Tule Paid), North Africa, Somalia (Shax) and southern Africa (Morabaraba, Tsoro Yemutwelve).

The "World Merrills Association" ran from 1987-1997 the World Championships annually at the Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton-le-Hole, North Yorkshire, England. The last competition was a one day event on Sunday 7th September 1997 with a 100 UK Pounds first prize. After the mostly British organization became defunct, it was superceded by the "Welt-Mühlespiel-Dachverband (WMD)" in Switzerland, which conducts every year a European Championship in Switzerland or Germany. Borlik Jakub (Poland) became the European champion in 2007. Other strong players are GM Alain Flury (Switzerland), GM Adrian Wenger (Switzerland), and GM Markus Schaub (Switzerland). The WMD is the governing body, which defines the official rules for tournament play and bestows the title of a Grandmaster (GM) and Master of Morris (MM). There were 4 grandmasters (GM) and 20 masters (MM) as of October 2006.

The biggest Morris tournament was held in 2000 in Bönen, a small town in Germany, which attracted 640 participants. The tournaments were organized to fund the restauration of an old windmill.

The number of legal positions in Nine Men's Morris is estimated to be 1010, while the total number of possible games is approximately 1050. In October 1993, Ralph Gasser (ETH Zürch, Switzerland) solved the game, showing that it ends in a draw with perfect play. The game was solved a second time by Peter Stahlhacke, Cologne University, in 2000. He also found the longest endgame problem in Morris, which takes 165 moves to solve it. Stahlhacke made his database available for the public, which can now play against Mr. Data, a perfect opponent at inetplay.de.

Contents

History

A 13th century illustration in the Libro de los Juegos of the game being played with dice.

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" about 1400 BCE. However, Friedrich Berger writes that some of the diagrams at Qurna include Coptic crosses, making it doubtful that the diagrams date to 1400 BCE. Berger concludes, "certainly they cannot be dated."

One of the earliest mentions of the game may be in Ovid's Ars Amatoria. In book III (c. 8 CE), after discussing Latrones, 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.

Berger believes the game was "probably well known by the Romans", as there are many boards on Roman buildings, even though dating them is impossible because the buildings "have been easily accessible" since they were built. It is possible that the Romans were introduced to the game via trade routes, but this cannot be proven.

The game peaked in popularity in medieval England. Boards have been found carved into the cloister seats at the English cathedrals at Canterbury, Gloucester, Norwich, Salisbury and Westminster Abbey. 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. Another board is carved into the base of a pillar in Chester Cathedral in Chester.

In Shakespeare's 16th century work A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania laments that it is no longer played: "The Nine Men's Morris is filled up with mud" (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene I).

Some authors say the game's origin is uncertain. It has been speculated that its name may be related to Morris dances, and hence to Moorish, but 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 merellus, which means a counter or gaming piece." King also notes that the game was popular among Roman soldiers.

In some European countries, the design of the board was given special significe as a symbol of protection from evil, and "to the ancient Celts, the Morris Square was sacred: at the center lay the holy Mill or Cauldron, a symbol of regeneration; and emanating out from it, the four cardinal directions, the four elements and the four winds."

Official WMD Rules

Morris Board

Each player has nine pieces, or "men", which move among the board's twenty-four intersections. As in Checkers, the object of the game is to leave the opposing player with no pieces or no legal moves. The game ends in a draw, if neither player can achieve this goal or when nothing has been captured for 50 moves.

Placing the Pieces

The game begins with an empty board. Players take turns placing their pieces on empty intersections. If a player is able to form a row of three pieces along one of the board's lines, he has a "mill" and may remove one of his opponent's pieces from the board; removed pieces may not be placed again. Players may only remove pieces, which are not in a mill. If all pieces of his adversary are in a mill, he captures nothing. When a player forms two mills in the same move, he removes two pieces of his adversary. Once all eighteen pieces have been placed, players take turns moving.

Moving the Pieces

To move, a player slides one of his pieces along a board line to an empty adjacent intersection. If he cannot do so, he has lost the game.

As in the placement stage, a player who aligns three of his pieces on a board line has a mill and may remove one of his opponent's pieces, but never a piece in a mill.

Any player reduced to two pieces is unable to remove any more opposing pieces and thus loses the game.

Flying

Once a player is reduced to three pieces, his pieces may "fly", "hop" to any empty intersections, not only adjacent ones.

Strategy

At the beginning of the game, it is more important to place pieces in versatile locations than to try to form mills immediately and make the mistake of concentrating one's pieces in one area of the board.

An good position known as "double-mill" is to be able to shuttle one piece back and forth between two mills, removing a piece every turn. In German-speaking countries the position is known as "Zwickmühle" and has become synonymous for a dilemma without escape. Sometimes the German term is also used by English Morris players.

References

Atkinson, H., Scarlett, B. F. & Swithin.
Nine Men's Morris.: In: Notes and Queries (Oxford, England) 1897; 7: 89–90.
Bandehzadeh, K., Berger, F. & Motawakel, A. G.
Das Mühlebrett von Pendschikent. In: Mitteilungen der ANISA 2000; 21: 6–10.
Bell, R. C.
Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. Dover Publications, New York City NY (USA), 1979 (vol. 2), 55–56.
Berger, F.
Das Mühlebrett an einem Hause in Goslar. In: Mitteilungen der ANISA 1996; 17: 17–32.
Berger, F.
Das Mühlebrett zwischen chinesischem Wahrsagegerät und karolingischem komputistischem Diagramm. In: Almogaren 2000; 31: 89–116.
Berger, F.
The Merels Board as a Symbol. Essen, Klinkestr. 28 (Published by the author) 2003.
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From Circle and Square to the Image of the World: a Possible Interpretation for Some Petroglyphs of Merels Boards. In: Rock Art Research 2004; 21 (1): 11–25.
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Merrills, Anyone?. In: Christian Science Monitor 1988 (November), 16–17.
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Praktischer Leitfaden des Mühlespiels: Eine leicht verständliche Einführung. Friedrich M. Hörhold-Verlag, Hildesheim (Germany) 1951.
Gasser, R.
Applying Retrograde Analysis to Nine Men's Morris. In: Artificial Intelligence 1990; 2: 161–173.
Gasser, R.
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Gasser, R. & Nievergelt, J.
Es ist entschieden: Das Mühlespiel ist unentschieden – Overflow. In: Informatik Spektrum 1994; 17(5): 314–317.
Gräber, S.
Strategien beim Mühlespiel (Diploma Thesis). Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Mathematik und Informatik, Saarbrücken (Germany) 1973.
Hanel, N.
Sonderkeramik in der Militärziegelei? Zu einer tabula lusoria mit Mühlespiel und Legionsstempel. In: Kölner Jahrbuch 1997; 30: 317–320.
Hartogh, T.
Mühle, Dame, Halma. Falken Verlag, Niedernhausen (Germany) 1999.
Lincke, T.
Perfect Play Using Nine Men's Morris as an Example (Diploma Thesis). Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich (Switzerland) 1994.
Mandl, F.
Die Mühle-Darstellungen auf Fels in den Nördlichen Kalkalpen. In: Mitteilungen der ANISA 1994; 15: 44–65.
Müller, R. F.
Mühle: Um Ecken denken und gewinnen (ECON Ratgeber). ECON Tachenbuch Verlag, Düsseldorf (Germany) 1987.
Nüscheler, M.
Nine Men's Morris. In: Abstract Games Magazine 2003; 4 (Issue 13): 22–24 & 29.
Riemschneider, M.
Glasberg und Mühlebrett. In: Jahrbuch für Symbolforschung 1968; 6: 137–149.
Schanz, E.
Spiel mit mir: Ein slawisches Mühlespiel. In: Archäologische Berichte aus Mecklenburg Vorpommern 2003; 10: 101–104.
Schürmann, H. & Nüscheler, M.
So gewinnt man Mühle. Otto Maier Verlag Ravensburg, Ravensburg (Germany) 1980.
Seidl, H.
Die Mühlefigur von Großcomburg. In: Frankenland Würzburg 1998; 50: 351–353.
Steinwender, D. & Nüscheler, M.
Kein Kinderspiel: Die bekanntesten Mühlespiel-PC-Programme im Test. In: Computer Schach und Spiele 1998; 5: 51–53.
Wollenik, F.
Überlegungen zum Mühlespiel. In: Almogaren 21; 1990: 109–123.

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