Manipulative recreations

Puzzles involving configurations

One of the earliest puzzles and games that require arranging counters into some specified alignment or configuration was Lucas’ Puzzle: in a row of seven squares, each of the three squares at the left end is occupied by a black counter, each of the three squares at the right end is occupied by a white counter, and the centre square is vacant. The object is to move one counter at a time until the squares originally occupied by white counters are occupied by black, and vice versa; black counters can be moved only to the right and white only to the left. A counter may move to an adjacent vacant square or it may jump one counter of the other colour to occupy a vacant square. The puzzle may be enlarged to any number of counters of each colour. For n counters of each kind the number of required moves is n(n + 2).

A similar puzzle uses eight numbered counters placed on nine positions. The aim is to shift the counters so that they will appear in reverse numerical order; only single moves and jumps are permitted.

Well known, but by no means as trivial, are games for two players, such as ticktacktoe and its more sophisticated variations, one of which calls for each player to begin with three counters (3 black, 3 white); the first player places a counter in any cell, except the center cell, of a 3 × 3 diagram; the players then alternate until all the counters are down. If neither has won by getting three in a row, each, in turn, is permitted to move a counter to an adjacent square, moving only horizontally or vertically. Achieving three in a row constitutes a win. There are many variations. The game can be played on a 4 × 4 diagram, each player starting with four counters; sometimes diagonal moves are permitted. Another version is played on a 5 × 5 pattern. Yet another interesting modification, popular in Europe, is variously known as mill or nine men’s morris, played with counters on a board consisting of three concentric squares and eight transversals.

Another game of this sort is played on a diamond-shaped board of tessellated hexagons, usually 11 on each edge, where by “tessellated” we mean fitted together like tiles to cover the board completely. Two opposite edges of the diamond are designated “white”; the other two sides, “black.” Each player has a supply of black or white counters. The players alternately place a piece on any vacant hexagon; the object of the game is for each player to complete an unbroken chain of his pieces between the sides designating his colour. Though the game does not end until one of the players has made a complete chain, it may meander across the board; it cannot end in a draw because the only way one player can block the other is by completing his own chain. The game was created by Piet Hein in 1942 in Denmark, where it quickly became popular under the name of polygon. It was invented independently in the United States in 1948 by John Nash, and a few years later one version was marketed under the name of hex.

In addition to the aforementioned varieties of a class of games that can be loosely described as “three in a row” or “specified alignment,” many others also exist, such as three- and four-dimensional ticktacktoe and even a computer ticktacktoe. The game strategy in ticktacktoe is by no means simple; an excellent mathematical analysis is given by F. Schuh.

Chessboard problems

Recreational problems posed with regard to the conventional chessboard are legion. Among the most widely discussed is the problem of how to place eight queens on a chessboard in such a way that none of the queens is attacking any other queen; the problem interested the great German mathematician C.F. Gauss (c. 1850). Another group of problems has to do with the knight’s tour; in particular, to find a closed knight’s tour that ends at the starting point, that does not enter any square more than once, but that passes through all the squares in one tour. Problems of the knight’s tour are intimately connected with the construction of magic squares. Other chessboard problems are concerned with determining the relative values of the various chess pieces; finding the maximum number of pieces of any one type that can be put on a board so that no one piece can take any other; finding the minimum number of pieces of any one type that can be put on a board so as to command all cells; and how to place 16 queens on a board so that no three of them are in a straight line.