Nine Men's Morris

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. The game has also been called cowboy checkers and is sometimes printed on the back ofcheckerboards. 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. Its name derives from the Latin word merellus, 'gamepiece'.

The board consists of a grid with twenty-four intersections or points. Each player has nine pieces, or "men", usually colored black and white. Players try to form 'mills'—three of their own men lined horizontally or vertically—allowing a player to remove an opponent's man from the game. A player wins by reducing the opponent to two pieces (where they could no longer form mills and thus be unable to win), or by leaving them without a legal move.

The game proceeds in three phases:

· Placing men on vacant points

· Moving men to adjacent points

· (optional phase) Moving men to any vacant point when the player has been reduced to three men