Nau Goti, and the game in Hindi

Every part of this site is available in Hindi — the board, the rules, the coaching tips, the online rooms. Not a translated menu over an English game: the status line, the move log and the questions are all written in Hindi.

Use the language switch in the header, or go straight there. The move log reads in whichever language you are using, so two people can play the same game with one reading Hindi and the other English.

Most of this game’s vocabulary was already Hindi before anybody translated anything, which is why the interface keeps the words rather than replacing them.

The game on this site takes its name from that second word. A tigadi is what you are trying to build, so Tigadi is what it is called.

Nobody plays Nau Goti in silence. These are ordinary spoken Hindi phrases that go naturally with the game — not special jargon, just what the moment calls for. They are worth knowing if you are learning Hindi through the game, or teaching the game to someone who speaks it.

Goti is feminine in Hindi, which is why the verbs end in -i: तिगड़ी बन गई, ये नहीं मर सकती. Getting that right is the quickest way to sound like someone who has actually played.

Every placement, move and capture is written into the move log beside the board, and every point is named the same way in both languages: first which square it is on, then which compass direction.

So बाहरी उत्तर-पश्चिम is the top-left corner of the outer square, and मध्य पूर्व is the middle of the right-hand side of the middle square. A hyphenated direction always means a corner — and on this board, a point that sits on three lines.

A whole entry reads naturally in either language. Where the English log says “Seed moved outer north → middle north — mill (tigadi)! captured inner east”, the Hindi log says “इमली बाहरी उत्तर से मध्य उत्तर पर गई — तिगड़ी! भीतरी पूर्व की गोटी मारी”. The players are renamed too: Bone becomes कौड़ी, a cowrie shell, and Seed becomes इमली, tamarind — both familiar stand-ins for a goti.

1. 1Start from what they already know. A child who plays काटा-ज़ीरो — noughts and crosses — already understands three in a row. The only new idea is that making one lets you take a piece.
2. 2Play the placing phase on its own a few times: put all eighteen pieces down, capture as lines form, then stop. It teaches spotting and blocking lines without the harder business of moving.
3. 3Count aloud in Hindi as pieces go down — एक, दो, तीन — and use the phrases above as things happen. Words stick when they are attached to something on the board.
4. 4Add the moving phase once placing is easy, with one rule said every time: एक कदम, लाइन के साथ — one step, along a line.
5. 5Then let the board help. The Hindi version of the site shows short coaching tips as you play, and passing one phone back and forth lets an adult and a child sit side by side.

Keep the first games short, and let the child make the first capture. The rule that a goti inside a tigadi cannot be taken is easier to show on the board than to explain.

Which name you use depends mostly on where you grew up. Nau Goti is the Hindi one; Daadi is recorded as Telugu and used all over India; Navakankari is the Sanskrit-derived name, with Navkakri in Gujarati and Saalu Mane Ata, Jodpi Ata or Char-Par in Kannada.

They describe the same nine pieces on the same three squares. English calls it nine men’s morris, which is the same literal naming habit arriving at the same place.

Two things, and both are stated up front so nothing catches you out. The four corner diagonals are drawn and they count — a tigadi along one captures like any other, giving 20 winning lines instead of 16. And a player with no legal move passes rather than losing.

Also, and this is the rule people query most: a goti never jumps. Even down to your last three pieces you move one step along a line. Many published rule sets let a player with three pieces move anywhere; this one does not, at any point in the game.