# Nine Men's Morris

Leave your opponent with two men, or with nowhere to move.

- Category: Board
- Features: Online multiplayer, Computer opponent, Saved progress, Local two-player
- Tags: board, strategy, multiplayer, classic, mills, morris, ancient, logic

## How to play

### Goal

Leave your opponent with two men, or with nowhere to move. You do that by making mills — three of your men in a line — and taking one of theirs each time you close one.

### How to Play

• First you take turns placing your nine men on any empty point
• Once all eighteen are down, slide a man to a joined point instead
• Close a line of three and you take one of their men
• Down to three men, your men may fly to any empty point
• Keyboard: arrows move the marker, Space picks up and puts down, Z undoes

### Rules

• A mill is three of your men on one of the sixteen marked lines
• Only lines count — three men round a corner are not a mill
• Closing a mill lets you take one enemy man off the board
• You may not take a man standing in a mill, unless every man they have left is standing in one
• A mill you open and close again scores every time it closes

### Tips

• The four middle points of the rings sit on four lines each — they are the ones worth having
• A "running mill", two lines sharing a man so that opening one closes the other, takes a man every single turn
• Shutting your opponent in wins as surely as taking their men, and they often see it too late
• Do not spend the placing phase chasing the first mill; a spread position is worth more than an early capture

### Game Over

A player loses when they are down to two men, or when it is their turn and no man of theirs can move. Fifty turns with nothing taken is a draw.

Play Nine Men's Morris in the free Game Nest app for iPhone, iPad, and Android.