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. In North America, the game has also been called cowboy checkers, and its board is sometimes printed on the back of checkerboards. Nine men's morris is a solved game, that is, a game whose optimal strategy has been calculated. It has been shown that with perfect play from both players, the game results in a draw.
Three men's morris is an abstract strategy game played on a three by three board 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.
Rimau-rimau is a two-player abstract strategy board game that belongs to the hunt game family. This family includes games like bagh-chal, main tapal empat, aadu puli attam, catch the hare, sua ghin gnua, the fox games, buga-shadara, and many more. Rimau-rimau is the plural of rimau which is an abbreviation of the word harimau, meaning 'tiger' in the Malay language. Therefore, rimau-rimau means 'tigers'. The several hunters attempting to surround and immobilize the tigers are called orang-orang, which is the plural of orang, meaning 'man'. Therefore, orang-orang means 'men' and there are twenty-two or twenty-four of them, depending on which version of the game is played. The game originates from Malaysia.
Kolowis Awithlaknannai is a two-player strategy board game from the Zuni Native American Indians. It was described by Stewart Culin in his book Games of the North American Indians (1907), and may have been the first publication of the game. It was later described in R.C. Bell's book Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations (1969). R.C. Bell coined the term fighting serpents, but provides no explanation for it. Perhaps the black and white pieces are laid out in the beginning of the game in such a way that it looks like two serpents fighting.
Nine holes is a two-player abstract strategy game from different parts of the world and is centuries old. It was very popular in England. It is related to tic-tac-toe, but even more related to three men's morris, achi, tant fant, shisima, picaria, and dara, because pieces are moved on the board to create the 3 in a row. It is an alignment game.
Achi is a two-player abstract strategy game from Ghana. It is also called tapatan. It is related to tic-tac-toe, but even more related to three men's morris, Nine Holes, Tant Fant, Shisima, and Dara, because pieces are moved on the board to create the 3-in-a-row. Achi is an alignment game.
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 an alignment game.
Shisima is a two-player abstract strategy game from Kenya. It is related to tic-tac-toe, and even more so to three men's morris, Nine Holes, Achi, Tant Fant, and Dara, because pieces are moved on the board to create the 3-in-a-row. Unlike those other games, Shisima uses an octagonal board.
Kaooa is a two-player abstract strategy game first recorded in the central provinces of India. It is a hunt game like rimau, rimau-rimau, main tapal empat, bagha-chall, the fox games, and aadu puli attam. However, what makes kaooa unique is that the board is a five-pointed star or a pentagram. Kaooa is also known as vultures and crows. One vulture goes up against seven crows.
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 Shisima, because pieces can be moved to create the three-in-a-row. Picaria is an alignment game.
Egara-guti is a two-player abstract strategy game from India, specifically from Central Provinces, and it was described by H.J.R. Murray in A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess (1952). The game is related to Draughts and even more so to Alquerque. Pieces are captured by leaping over them. Egara-Guti consists of a Lau kata kati board, but with the addition of two lines connecting the two triangles and running through them. Egara-guti belongs to a specific category of games called Indian War-games; some other games in this category are Lau kata kati, Dash-guti, Pretwa, Gol-skuish. All Indian War-games have one important thing in common, and that is that all the pieces are laid out on the grid patterned board in the beginning, with only one vacant point in the center. This forces the first move to be played on the central point, and captured by the other player's piece.
Buga-shadara, also known as Bouge Shodre, is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Tuva, a republic in Siberia, Russia. It is a hunt game where one player plays the deer. There are two deer usually represented as the black pieces. The boars are also referred black in the referenced article "Buga-shadara a folk game from Tuva". The other player has 24 white pieces with dogs associated to them. The board consist of an Alquerque board flanked on two of its opposite sides by a square patterned board. Because the board is in part an Alquerque board, this makes Buga-shadara a tiger hunt game. What makes Buga-shadara unique among tiger games are the expansion boards on the two opposite sides of the Alquerque board. They are square, whereas most are triangle-like. The word "shadara" resembles the word "shahdara". The "shah" part "is a title given to the emperors/kings and lords of Iran .". There is a place called Shahdara Bagh in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, and it's thought that the word "Shahdara can be translated as "the way of kings". Shah translates as "king" and dara translates as the way of kings." The referenced article associates the boars as kings. Perhaps the boars or deer are kings, and have to find a way or have a way with the white pieces or dogs.
Felli is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Morocco. It is related to Alquerque and draughts as pieces leap over one another to capture. Felli's closest relatives are several thousand miles away in the form of Lau kata kati from India and the game called Butterfly from Mozambique. One main difference is that the Felli board has only one horizontal line across its breadth as opposed to two found in the other two games.
Len choa was a two-player abstract strategy game from 19th-century southern Thailand documented by Captain James Low in 1839. It is a Leopard hunt game. One tiger is going up against six leopards. The leopards attempt to surround and trap the tiger while the tiger attempts to capture enough of them so that the leopards can not immobilize the tiger. It is unknown how old the game is, and it is only known from the periodical Asiatic Researches; or, Transactions of the Society, Instituted in Bengal, For Inquiring into The History, The Antiquities, The Arts and Sciences, and Literature of Asian, Second Part of the Twentieth Volume and specifically in chapter X On Siamese Literature (1839) in which Low authored. There may be a very similar game played in Sri Lanka called Hat diviyan keliya.
Hat diviyan keliya is a two-player abstract strategy game from Sri Lanka. It is a Leopard hunt game. One tiger is going up against seven leopards. The leopards attempt to surround and trap the tiger while the tiger attempts to capture enough of them so that the leopards can not trap it.
Demala diviyan keliya or Koti Sellama is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon. It is a hunt game, and since it uses a triangle board, Demala diviyan keliya is specifically a leopard hunt game. Three leopards are going up against fifteen dogs. The dogs attempt to surround and trap the leopards while the leopards attempt to capture enough of them in order to foil their objective. It is unknown how old the game is, but the game was described by H. Parker in his 1909 book Ancient Ceylon: An Account of the Aborigines and of Part of the Early Civilisation. The game is also known as the Tamil leopards' game. The game is well known in Southern India, and its Hindustani name is Rafāya.
Fetaix is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Morocco. It is very similar to Alquerque. The only difference is that pieces cannot move backwards until they are promoted to Mullah which is the equivalent of King in draughts. Furthermore, Mullahs can move any number of vacant points on the board, and capture enemy pieces from any distance similar to the Kings in International draughts. Another name for the game is qireq.
Salta is two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Konrad Heinrich Büttgenbach in 1899 in Germany. Büttgenbach (1870–1939) was born in Heerdt, near Düsseldorf, Germany. The game attained its highest popularity in the early 1900s before World War I especially in France and Germany. The World Trade Fair of 1900 in Paris exhibited a Salta board made of mahogany with golden counters adorned with more than 5,000 diamonds. Famous players were the US chess master Frank Marshall, the German World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker, and the French actress Sarah Bernhardt.
Awithlaknannai Mosona is a two-player strategy board game from the Zuni Native American Indian tribe of New Mexico, United States. It is unknown how old the game is. The game was described by Stewart Culin in his book "Games of the North American Indians Volume 2: Games of Skill" (1907). In this book, it was named Awithlaknan Mosona. Awithlaknannai Mosona resembles another Zuni board game called Kolowis Awithlaknannai with few minor differences. The former having a smaller board, and depending upon the variant, it also has less lines joining the intersection points. The rules are the same. Awithlaknannai Mosona belongs to the draughts and alquerque family of games as pieces hop over one another when capturing. It is actually more related to Alquerque, since the board is made up of intersection points and lines connecting them. It is thought that the Spanish had brought Alquerque to the American Southwest, and Awithlaknannai Mosona may have been an evolution from Alquerque. However, in Stewart Culin's 1907 book, the Zunis claim that they had adopted a hunt game from Mexico similar to catch the hare and the fox games of Europe, and transformed it into Awithlaknannai Mosona. In these games, one player has more pieces over the other, however, the other player's piece has more powers. The Zuni's equalized the numbers of pieces and their powers, and also may have transformed the board making its length far exceed its width. Diagonal lines also replaced orthogonal lines altogether. However, the hunt game from Mexico may have used an alquerque board even though the game mechanics of their new game, Awithlaknannai Mosona, were completely different.
