Mū tōrere

Mū tōrere gameboard and starting setup

Mū tōrere is a two-player board game played mainly by the Māori people from the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. It is one of two board games that the Māori people are known to have played before their country became part of the British Empire.

The Ngāti Hauā chief Wiremu Tamihana Te Waharoa reputedly offered a game to Governor George Grey with the whole country going to the winner, but Grey declined.[1]

Gameboard

Mū tōrere is played on papa takaro, or gameboards, or can be inscribed into clay or sand. The board is in the form of an eight-pointed star with endpoints, called kewai, connected to the center point, or pūtahi. The lines connecting the kewai to the pūtahi are oriented at 45 degrees.

Rules

Each player controls four counters, or perepere, which are initially placed on the board at the kewai. At the beginning of the game the pūtahi is empty. (See illustration.)

Players move one of their counters per turn to an empty point. Players can move only to an adjacent kewai, and can move to the pūtahi only when the moved counter is adjacent to an opponent's counter. The player who blocks all the opponent's counters from moving is the winner.

Analysis

Mū tōrere has 1180 reachable positions. Out of those, 208 are winning, 128 are losing, and 844 are draws.[2]

References

  1. ↑ A W Reed and Buddy Mikaere (2002). "Draughts". Taonga Tuku Iho: Illustrated Encyclopedia of Maori Life. p. 54. ISBN 1-877246-90-5.
  2. ↑ http://gamescrafters.berkeley.edu/analysis/analysisIndex.php

Bibliography

  • Bell, R. C. (1979) [1st Pub. 1969, Oxford University Press, London]. Board and Table Games From Many Civilizations. II (Revised ed.). Dover Publications Inc. pp. 149–51. ISBN 0-671-06030-9.
  • Bell, R. C. (1983). "Mu Torere". The Boardgame Book. Exeter Books. pp. 42–43. ISBN 0-671-06030-9.
  • Jelliss, George. "Mu Torere". Games and Puzzles Journal. Archived from the original on 7 September 2012.
  • Murray, H. J. R. (1978). "§4.8.3 Mu-torere". A History of Board-Games other than Chess (Reissued ed.). Hacker Art Books Inc. p. 93. ISBN 0-87817-211-4.

Further reading

  • Ascher, Marcia (April 1987). "Mu Torere: An Analysis of a Maori Game". Mathematics Magazine. Mathematical Association of America. 60 (2): 90–100. doi:10.2307/2690304. ISSN 0025-570X.
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