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.

Tigadi strategy

The diagonals change which squares are worth having, and the absence of flying changes what a lead is worth. Both make Tigadi play differently from morris as usually described — here is what actually wins games.

Take the corners

On a morris board without diagonals every point sits on exactly two lines, so no point is inherently better than another. Adding the four corner diagonals breaks that symmetry.

A corner point lies on three of the 20 lines. A side midpoint lies on two. Summed across the board that is 60 line-memberships over 24 points — and the corners hold a disproportionate share of them.

A piece on a corner is therefore working on three possible tigadis at once, and denying your opponent three. In the placing phase this is the clearest guide you have: when two placements look equally good, take the corner. It is the opposite of the standard game, where all points are equal and the usual advice is to fight for the middle ring.

The middle ring still matters, but for a different reason: middle-ring points have four neighbours where outer and inner points have three, so pieces there can move more freely later.

Build a running tigadi, not a static one

A completed tigadi captures once. A tigadi you can open and close repeatedly captures every time it closes, and that is how games are actually won.

The shape to aim for: three of your pieces on a line, plus an empty point adjacent to one of them that is not on any of your opponent’s threats. Step out, step back, capture. Step out, step back, capture again. Your opponent must either block the empty point — costing them a piece elsewhere — or watch you dismantle them one goti per turn.

Two intersecting lines that share a piece are better still. Move the shared piece between them and each arrival completes a different tigadi, so there is no single point your opponent can block to stop it.

The placing phase decides more than it looks

A tigadi formed while placing captures immediately, so the first eighteen turns are not a warm-up. Priorities, roughly in order:

Complete a tigadi if you can. A piece in hand is worth less than a piece the opponent no longer has.
Block a tigadi your opponent is one move from completing.
Take a corner, for the three lines it sits on.
Create two threats at once — an open pair on two different lines, so blocking one leaves the other.
Avoid clustering. Pieces heaped in one region contest few lines and get blocked as a group.

Watch the diagonals specifically. Players who know standard morris consistently miss diagonal threats, because on the board they learned on those lines do not exist. It is the most reliable way to catch out a strong opponent playing this variant for the first time.

Mobility, and why the endgame is real

Because no piece ever gains the ability to jump, a piece with nowhere to go is genuinely stuck for as long as its neighbours stay occupied. Mobility is not a soft consideration here — it is a hard constraint that lasts to the final move.

Two things follow. First, blocking works: hemming in your opponent’s pieces reduces the moves they can make, and a player with only bad moves available must still make one — often breaking their own tigadi to do it. Second, being down on material is not automatically lost, because a compact, mobile position with three pieces can hold out against a scattered five.

This is where the standard game and Tigadi diverge most sharply. With flying, a player reduced to three pieces can answer threats from anywhere and the game drifts to a draw. Without it, the player who has been quietly restricting their opponent’s options simply converts.

How the computer opponent thinks

The AI on this site scores positions with a handful of weighted terms, and they are a fair summary of what to pay attention to — material first by a wide margin, then completed tigadis, then lines where you hold two of three points, then corners, then mobility.

Material dominating is not laziness: on a 24-point board, being a piece up compounds. It means one thing above all — do not trade a capture away for position unless the position gives the piece straight back.

Common questions

Should I place on corners or on the middle ring first?

Corners, on this board. A corner sits on three of the 20 lines while a side midpoint sits on two, so corners do more work both for you and against your opponent. Middle-ring points are the better squares for mobility later, since they have four neighbours rather than three.

Is it worth breaking my own tigadi to capture?

Usually yes, if you can re-form it. That is the whole idea of a running tigadi: the line is worth more as a repeatable capture than as a static formation. Breaking it with no way back is what to avoid.

How do I play against someone who knows nine men’s morris?

Play the diagonals. Strong morris players scan the rings and spokes automatically and simply do not see diagonal threats, because those lines are absent from the board they learned. Corner-to-corner tigadis catch them repeatedly.