How to Play Nine Men’s Morris: Rules and Strategy

Three squares, 24 points and nine pieces each: Nine Men’s Morris looks simpler than checkers, yet it has been played across Europe for centuries. The idea is to line up three of your pieces, called a mill, and take your opponent’s pieces one at a time. Here is how to play Nine Men’s Morris from the first placement to the last capture, plus the variants, the strategy that wins games and a short history.

The board and the pieces

The board is three squares, one inside the other. Four lines join the midpoints of the sides, running from the outer square through the middle square to the inner one. Pieces sit on the 24 points where lines meet or turn a corner, not inside the squares.

There are 16 straight lines of three points on the board: four sides on each of the three squares, plus the four cross lines. Each of those lines is a possible mill. Every point lies on exactly two of them.

Each player has nine pieces, usually light and dark. In this guide they are White and Black, and White moves first. The game is also known as the mill board game, mill, merels or merrills, and in North America it is sometimes called cowboy checkers.

Nine men’s morris rules: the three phases

A game moves through up to three phases. A mill can be formed in any of them, and the capture rule is the same throughout.

Phase 1: placing

The board starts empty. Players take turns putting one piece from their hand on any empty point. This continues until both players have placed all nine pieces, 18 turns in all. Mills already count in this phase, and many games are decided before a single piece moves.

Phase 2: moving

Once every piece is on the board, a turn means sliding one of your pieces along a line to a neighboring empty point. Pieces can’t jump over other pieces, and you can’t pass. Corner points connect to two neighbors, and midpoints connect to three or four.

Phase 3: flying

When a player is down to three pieces, the standard rules let that player’s pieces fly. A flying piece can move to any empty point on the board, not just a neighboring one. According to Wikipedia, flying was added to give the weaker side a chance when it is one piece away from losing. Some players leave this rule out, so agree on it before you start.

Mills and capturing

Whenever you move or place a piece so that three of your pieces stand in a row on one line, you have formed a mill. You then remove one of your opponent’s pieces from the board. Removed pieces are out for the rest of the game.

• Protected pieces: you can’t remove a piece that is part of one of your opponent’s mills, unless all of their pieces are in mills. Then you may take any of them.
• Mills along lines only: three in a row only counts along a drawn line. Three pieces on the corners of a square don’t count, and neither do diagonals, which the standard board doesn’t have.
• Re-forming mills: if you move a piece out of a mill and back in on a later turn, the mill forms again and you remove another piece.
• Two mills at once: the common rule summaries don’t settle what happens when one move makes two mills. Our online version removes just one piece, so agree on a house rule for board play.

How to win (and how games are drawn)

You win Nine Men’s Morris in one of two ways:

1. Capture: reduce your opponent to two pieces. With only two left, they can never form a mill again.
2. Blockade: leave your opponent with no legal move on their turn in the moving phase. A player whose pieces are all boxed in loses, even with more pieces on the board.

Games between careful players often end in a draw. Common rules declare a draw when the same position comes up three times, or when a set number of moves pass without a mill. Our version uses both: three repetitions, or 50 moves each without a mill.

Variants of the game

Nine Men’s Morris is the best-known member of a family of morris games. The other three common versions differ in board size and piece count.

Three Men’s Morris

Each player has three pieces on a small three-by-three grid, and the first player to make three in a row wins. If nobody has won after placing, the pieces move. Wikipedia notes two versions: in one, pieces move to any empty point, and in the other, only to a neighboring point. Our online version draws both diagonals and uses the neighboring-point rule. It plays like a moving version of tic-tac-toe.

Six Men’s Morris

Each player has six pieces on a board of two nested squares, 16 points in all. Mills form along the sides of the squares, since the short cross lines only have two points each. Wikipedia notes that flying is not permitted in this version.

Twelve Men’s Morris

Each player has twelve pieces on the nine men’s board with four diagonal lines added, joining the corners of the three squares. The diagonals add extra mills. With 24 pieces and 24 points, the board can fill up during placing, and Wikipedia says the game is then a draw.

Strategy tips

The rules take five minutes to learn. These habits are what separate a quick loss from a long, even game.

• Stay flexible while placing. Rushing to form a mill in the opening often leaves your pieces stuck on the edges. Mobility at the start of the moving phase usually matters more than an early capture.
• Value the crossing points. The four midpoints of the middle square each connect to four neighbors, the most on the board. Pieces there are hard to block and can support mills in two directions.
• Block two-in-a-rows. When your opponent has two pieces on a line with the third point empty, cover that point unless you can make a mill of your own first.
• Set up a double threat. A move that threatens two different mills at once can’t be blocked with a single move.
• Build a running mill. Arrange your pieces so one piece slides between two mills, closing one every turn. Your opponent loses a piece each time, and this setup often decides the game.
• Watch for the blockade. Count your opponent’s legal moves as well as their pieces. If they only have one free piece, taking or blocking it can win on the spot.

A short history

Morris boards turn up across Europe and beyond, but the oldest dates are disputed. The game historian R. C. Bell dated boards cut into the roof slabs of the temple at Kurna in Egypt to around 1400 BCE. Friedrich Berger later pointed out Coptic crosses among those carvings and concluded that the boards cannot be dated. One of the earliest written references may be in the Roman poet Ovid’s Ars Amatoria.

The game was popular in medieval Europe. A 13th-century illustration in the Spanish Libro de los juegos shows it being played with dice, and boards are carved into the cloister seats of several English cathedrals, including Canterbury, Gloucester, Norwich and Salisbury, as well as Westminster Abbey. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream mentions it too, when Titania says that “the nine men’s morris is filled up with mud.”

In the computer age, Ralph Gasser analyzed the game and showed that perfect play from both players leads to a draw. You can read more in the Wikipedia article on Nine Men’s Morris.

Play Nine Men’s Morris online

The fastest way to learn is to play. Our free Nine Men’s Morris game runs in your browser on desktop or phone, against the computer on Easy, Medium or Hard, or against a friend on the same device. It shows the pieces left in each hand, lights up every legal move, rings the pieces you are allowed to remove after a mill and marks the last move. Flying is on by default and can be switched off, and there is an undo button for practice.

The same game also offers Three, Six and Twelve Men’s Morris, so you can try every variant in this guide. If you like capturing games on a board, Checkers is another classic to play against the computer.

Frequently asked questions

How many pieces do you get in Nine Men’s Morris?

Each player gets nine pieces, which is where the name comes from. All nine are placed one at a time before any piece moves. Six and Twelve Men’s Morris use six and twelve pieces.

Can you remove a piece that is in a mill?

Not normally. A piece in a mill is protected, so you must take a piece that isn’t in a mill. If all of your opponent’s pieces are in mills, you may remove any of them.

What happens when a player has three pieces left?

Under the standard rules, that player’s pieces can fly to any empty point instead of moving only along the lines. Some players skip the flying rule, so agree on it before the game.

Is Nine Men’s Morris a solved game?

Yes. Ralph Gasser’s computer analysis showed that the game is a draw with perfect play from both sides. In practice, mistakes are common, and most games between people have a winner.

Is Nine Men’s Morris the same as mill?

Yes. Mill, the mill game, merels and merrills are all names for the same game, and in North America it is sometimes called cowboy checkers.

Conclusion

Nine Men’s Morris comes down to three ideas: place for mobility, form mills to capture, and keep your opponent from moving. Learn the protected-mill rule and the running mill, and you will hold your own against most players. Set up a board on our free Nine Men’s Morris game to practice, and when you want a break between matches, the Chrome dino game is always one click away.