How to Play Nine Man Morris

The game of Nine Man Morris, known by other varied names such as Nine Man Merrills, Mills, Mill, Merelles, and many more, is a game of strategy played by two people. The earliest variation of this game dates back 3,500 years in Europe. The following will show you how to make and play the game of Nine Man Morris.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Two players
• Paper, wood or sidewalk
• Black magic marker or chalk
• Paper
• Scissors

Setting up the Game

1. Find a piece of poster board, paper or a wooden board and a black marker to make your game board, or you can draw it on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk.
2. Draw the game board. Do this by drawing a square, then another square around the first one, and finally another square around the second one, making sure that they are all equally spaced from each other.
3. Draw four dotted lines connecting all four corners of the squares together starting from the smallest square in the middle and ending with the largest on the outside.
4. Draw a circle at each corner of all three squares and one circle in the middle of the line of each side of each square. You will have a total of 24 circles (8 on each square).
5. Find or make two sets of game markers with nine pieces in each set, making sure that each set is distinguishable from the other. You can make the pieces on your computer or draw them on stiff paper such as poster board or construction paper. Cut them out or you can use checkers or buttons.

Playing the Game

6. Understand the object of the game, which is to make a row of three along the lines on the board with your markers. This row is called a "mill." When you've successfully placed a mill, you may remove one of your opponent's markers.
7. Take turns placing one marker at a time on the board until each player has placed all their markers throughout the board. Try to make mills as you are doing this to capture your opponent's markers.
8. Take turns moving your pieces along the lines of the board. With each turn, you may move only one space and you may not hop over pieces. Try to make mills as you go to and take one marker each time you accomplish this.
9. Win the game if you surround your opponent, bringing them to a place where they cannot move their markers, or if your opponent only has two markers remaining.

Tips & Warnings

• You can find game pieces and boards online that you can print out.
• Even if you make two mills simultaneously, you still may only remove one of your opponent's markers.