How to teach Tigadi to children (and beginners)

There is no fixed starting age. As a rough guide, a child who plays noughts and crosses comfortably and can take turns without fuss is ready for the first lesson. The full game — with moving, protection and the endgame — asks for more patience and suits slightly older children, often around eight and up, though some younger children manage it and some older ones need more time. Adults can usually cover all four lessons in one sitting.

The plan works the same way for everyone. What changes is how long you stay on each lesson. Move on when the learner is enjoying the current version and winning some games, not when you have finished explaining it.

You do not need to buy anything. A sheet of paper, a pencil and a ruler make a board, and coins, buttons or dried beans in two colours make the pieces — nine each.

1. 1Draw a large square, as big as the page allows.
2. 2Draw a medium square inside it, and a small square inside that, all three sharing the same centre.
3. 3Join the midpoints of the sides: four straight lines from the outer square, through the middle one, to the inner one.
4. 4Join the corners the same way: four diagonal lines from each outer corner to the matching inner corner.
5. 5Mark a dot at every place where lines meet or turn. There should be 24 dots — eight on each square.

Count the dots together, then the lines of three: four sides on each square makes twelve, and eight spokes — four straight, four diagonal — makes twenty. Counting them is the first lesson in seeing the board.

Play only the placing phase. Take turns putting one piece on any empty dot. The first player to get three of their pieces along one line — a tigadi — wins. If all eighteen pieces go down without one, start again.

This is noughts and crosses on a bigger board, so it feels familiar straight away. While you play, point at the diagonals — adults who know other mill games often overlook them.

Once it is going well, talk about blocking: when your opponent has two on a line with the third point empty, you must put a piece there.

Now a tigadi does not end the game. Instead, its maker removes one of the opponent’s pieces from the board, and play carries on until all eighteen pieces have been placed. Whoever has more pieces left at that point wins this version.

Introduce the protection rule here, but only once a capture has happened: a piece that is part of a complete tigadi cannot be taken, unless every one of that player’s pieces is in one. Show it on the board rather than describing it.

Once all pieces are placed, players take turns sliding one of their pieces along a line to the next dot, if it is empty. Making a tigadi by moving captures just as it did while placing.

A good habit for beginners: trace the line with a finger before moving. If your finger has to leave the drawn line, the move is not allowed. Then show the trick that makes the game interesting — step a piece out of your tigadi and back in on a later turn, and it captures again.

Two rules to state clearly. You must move if you can, even if every move is bad. And if you cannot move at all, you simply skip your turn — you have not lost.

Now play the full game: reduce your opponent to two pieces and you win. Mention the two draw rules only if they come up — the same position three times with the same player to move, or a hundred turns in a row without a capture.

The important idea for this lesson is that pieces never jump, however few are left. With three pieces each, every step counts, and a piece on the far side of the board is a long way from helping.

• ·Diagonals only run through the corners. There is no diagonal line from a side midpoint.
• ·A line is three dots joined by one straight drawn line. Three pieces around a corner, in an L shape, are not a tigadi.
• ·Pieces move along lines, not across the gaps between the squares.
• ·A tigadi captures when it is completed, not every turn it sits on the board. To capture again, open it and close it.
• ·One capture per move, even if a single move completes two lines.
• ·Captured pieces are out of the game. They do not go back into anyone’s hand.
• ·No flying or jumping, ever — including for anyone who has played a version where pieces fly at three.
• ·Being stuck means skipping a turn, not losing.

Set these up on the paper board. Each takes a minute, and the answers are underneath.

1. 1How many lines pass through outer north-west? And through outer north? (Answer: three — the outer north side, the outer west side and the north-west diagonal. Outer north has only two.)
2. 2You have pieces on outer north-west and inner north-west. Where do you place to make a tigadi? (Answer: middle north-west, completing the diagonal.)
3. 3Your opponent has outer north-east and outer south-east. Where must you place? (Answer: outer east, or they complete the outer east side next turn.)
4. 4You have outer north-west and outer south-east. Find a placement that makes two threats at once. (Answer: outer north-east threatens both the outer north and outer east sides; outer south-west threatens both the outer west and outer south sides.)
5. 5In the moving phase you hold outer north-west and outer north-east, with outer north empty. Which of your pieces could complete the line? (Answer: only one standing on middle north. A piece on middle north-east cannot — it is not joined to outer north.)

When these feel easy, make up your own — or ask the learner to set one for you.

There is no dice and no hidden information, so every win and loss can be explained by moves on the board — and replayed to see what went wrong. The board can be drawn anywhere. A game takes minutes. And each phase asks for a different kind of thinking: placing rewards looking for your opponent’s threats as well as your own, moving rewards thinking a turn or two ahead, and the endgame rewards counting steps.

When paper runs out, the game on this site works for practice: pass one phone back and forth for a two-player game, or let a beginner try the easiest computer level, which is set up to stay beatable.