Morris

Morris is one game family with three variants. These are the Little Golem rules, including our automatic draw policy. The games are currently available in a private trial; this page does not announce a public release or claim that all draw rules are identical to a particular tournament federation’s rules.

Board and objective

The board has 24 points on three nested squares, joined at the midpoints of their sides. Morabaraba also joins corresponding corners diagonally. There is no playable centre point and no connection through the centre.

Form mills: three of your stones on a marked straight three-point line. Completing a mill lets you remove an opposing stone. Win by leaving the opponent with fewer than three stones available for play, or with no legal action.

Taking stones

After a placement or movement completes a mill, remove exactly one opposing stone. Even if the action completes two mills, it earns only one capture. Choose a stone outside an opposing mill whenever one exists. If every opposing stone is in a mill, any opposing stone may be removed. Captured stones never return to the reserve.

The placement or movement and its required capture form one completed turn. You must finish the capture before sending the turn. In the client, choose the stone to remove, then confirm with Send; Cancel discards the draft.

9 — Nine Men’s Morris

White starts on an empty board. Players alternate placing one stone from their reserve on a vacant point. Once both reserves are empty, move one stone along a connection to an adjacent vacant point. A player with exactly three stones may instead fly to any vacant point.

A mill may be opened and closed again on later turns. After placement, a player loses with fewer than three stones or with no legal move.

10 — Lasker Morris

White starts. On every turn, either place a reserve stone on a vacant point or move one of your stones to an adjacent vacant point. You may move while stones remain in reserve; there is no separate placement phase.

Flying becomes available when your own reserve is empty and you have exactly three stones on the board, even if your opponent still has reserve stones. You lose with fewer than three stones in total (board plus reserve), or with no legal action. Being unable to move a board stone is not defeat if a legal placement remains available.

12 — Morabaraba

Dark starts. Each player has twelve cows. Placement, movement, flying and taking cows work as in the nine-stone variant, with the extra diagonal mills and connections shown on the board.

There is an additional restriction: if you transfer a cow from one mill into another mill during movement, you may not immediately reverse that transfer on your next turn to form a mill again. Little Golem applies this restriction during flying too. A different legal action remains possible.

Automatic draws

These rules apply to all three variants:

• 50 individual moves without placement or capture. Count each player’s completed turn once: two players moving once each count as two moves. A placement or capture resets the counter to zero. In Lasker Morris, movement while reserve stones remain also counts toward the limit.
• Three occurrences of the same position. Compare positions only after completed turns, including the initial position. They must have the same occupied points, player to move, reserve counts and any restrictions affecting legal moves. In Morabaraba this includes mill-return restrictions. The draw counter itself is not part of the position. Rotations and reflections do not count as identical; the three occurrences need not be consecutive.

Morabaraba has a shorter endgame limit: once both reserves are empty and either player has exactly three cows, 10 subsequent individual moves without capture produce a draw. The turn that first enters this endgame sets the counter to zero; the next quiet turn counts as one. A capture resets it to zero if play continues. Earlier turns do not count toward this limit. This ten-move limit does not apply to variants 9 or 10.

Resolve the entire turn, including a capture, before checking the result. A win takes precedence over a draw. A capture on the threshold turn resets the counter instead of causing a draw. No draw claim is required.