Tigadi (तिगड़ी) is a two-player board game from India, played on three concentric squares with 24 points. It is a variant of nine men’s morris — known in Hindi as नवकंकरी or नौ गोटी — with one important difference: the corner diagonals are real lines, so they carry both moves and captures. The name comes from the tigadi, a trio of your pieces on one line, which is what lets you capture.

How do you play Tigadi?

Each player has nine pieces, called gotis. You take turns placing them on any empty point until all eighteen are down. After that, you take turns sliding one goti to the next point along a drawn line. Whenever three of your gotis occupy one full line, you take an enemy goti off the board. Reduce your opponent to two gotis and you win.

A tigadi is three of one player’s gotis filling all three points of a single drawn line — the same idea as a mill in nine men’s morris. There are 20 such lines on this board: twelve around the three squares and eight along the spokes. Closing a tigadi captures exactly one enemy goti, no matter how many lines you complete at once.

Can a piece jump when you only have three left?

No. In Tigadi a goti always steps to the next intersection along a line — at nine pieces, at three, at two. There is no flying, hopping or jumping at any piece count. This is the biggest difference from the widely published nine men’s morris rules, where a player reduced to three pieces may move anywhere.

What happens if a player has no legal move?

They pass, and the turn goes back to their opponent. Being blocked is never a loss in Tigadi. Because the board is fully connected and every point has at least three neighbours, both players can never be stuck at the same time.

Is Tigadi the same as Nau Goti?

They are the same family of game. Nau goti means “nine pieces”, which is what each player starts with, and the game is also called नवकंकरी across parts of India. Elsewhere you will find it as nine men’s morris, mills, merels or morabaraba — though the diagonals and the no-jumping rule make this version distinct.

Can a tigadi capture more than once?

Yes, and this is how games are won. Move a goti out of a completed tigadi and back in on a later turn, and it counts again, capturing another enemy goti each time. Players call this a running tigadi, and setting one up is the strongest plan in the game.

Which pieces can I capture?

Any enemy goti that is not standing inside a completed tigadi of its own. Pieces inside an enemy tigadi are protected. If every one of your opponent’s gotis is inside a tigadi, that protection lapses and you may take any of them.

Can I play Tigadi online with a friend?

Yes. Create a room and you get a four-character code and a shareable link. Your friend opens the link on any device and you play in real time, with the server refereeing every move. You can also play on one device by passing it back and forth, or against the computer at three difficulty levels.

How does a game of Tigadi end in a draw?

Two ways. If the same position occurs three times with the same player to move, the game is drawn. So is a run of 100 turns with no capture at all. Both counters only start once every goti has been placed.

Navakankari: the traditional game

Navakankari is the Sanskrit-derived name for the nine-piece alignment game played across India for well over two thousand years. This page describes the traditional game as Indian sources record it — which is not quite the game you can play on this site, and the difference is worth being clear about.

The name

Navakankari means, roughly, “nine pebbles” — nava for nine, and a word for the small stones that served as pieces. The name describes the equipment exactly: nine pebbles a side, and a board that can be drawn in dust with a stick.

Name	Language
Navakankari	Sanskrit
Navkakri	Gujarati
Saalu Mane Ata	Kannada
Jodpi Ata	Kannada
Char-Par	Kannada
Daadi / Dahdi	Telugu
Nau Goti	Hindi

Indian sources place play as early as the 4th century BCE, with the game appearing in records of the Maurya and Gupta periods, and describe it as a pastime of scholars, warriors and royalty. A board survives cut into the floor of a roughly 400-year-old Hanuman temple at Kuluru, in Andhra Pradesh’s Nandyal district.

The traditional rules

As documented by Indian sources, Navakankari is played like this:

The board is three squares one inside another, joined by lines from the midpoint of each inner side to the midpoint of the corresponding outer side. Pieces go on the 24 intersections.
Each player has nine coins or pebbles, placed one per turn onto any empty point.
Three of one player’s pieces in a straight line — horizontally or vertically — is a mill, and removes one opponent piece.
A diagonal alignment does not count.
A piece already part of a mill cannot be removed.
After placing, pieces move one step to an adjacent empty point along a line.
A player loses when reduced to two pieces, or when they have no valid move left.

Note the two details that distinguish the tradition: diagonals do not count, and being blocked loses you the game.

How the version on this site differs

The game here is called Tigadi rather than Navakankari, and that is deliberate — it is a variant of the same family, not the traditional game.

	Traditional Navakankari	Tigadi (this site)
Board	Three squares, midpoint spokes	Same, plus four corner diagonals
Diagonal lines count	No	Yes
Winning lines	16	20
Pieces each	9	9
No legal move	You lose	You pass; play continues
Reduced to two pieces	You lose	You lose

If you want the traditional game, play on a board without diagonals and treat a blockade as a loss. If you want the version with more lines and no blockade defeat, that is what runs here.

Why it survived

Navakankari needs no equipment. A board scratched in the ground and eighteen pebbles, tamarind seeds or cowrie shells is a complete set, which is why it turns up on temple floors and courtyard stones rather than in collections.

It is also genuinely deep for something so simple. The placing phase alone rewards planning several moves ahead, and the mill-and-remove mechanic produces the kind of grinding advantage that makes a game worth replaying rather than just finishing.

Common questions

What does Navakankari mean?

Approximately “nine pebbles” in Sanskrit — a literal description of the pieces. Each player starts with nine, traditionally small stones, seeds or shells.

Is Navakankari the same as nine men’s morris?

Yes, in the sense that they are the same game reached independently. Navakankari is the Indian name and nine men’s morris the English one, and the traditional rules of both use the board without diagonals.

Can I play traditional Navakankari on this site?

Not exactly. This site plays the diagonal variant, where the four corner lines count and a blocked player passes rather than losing. The traditional game uses only the sixteen midpoint-and-ring lines and ends against a blocked player.