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The Rules of Havannah

Havannah belongs to the connection family. There are two players, white and black. The board can be seen in the diagram below.
  • The game starts on an empty board. Players move in turn to place one stone on an empty point. White moves first.
  • The game is won by the first player to complete a ring or a bridge or a fork. All of these are chains: closed connections of one color.

    • A ring is a chain around at least one point.
    • A bridge is a chain linking two corners.
    • A fork is a chain linking three sides.
      Corners do not belong to either side.
That's it. In his New Rules for Classic Games (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York; ISBN 0-471-53621-0), Wayne Schmittberger states that a ring should surround at least one vacant point. This is not the case: the point may be occupied by either player.

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The diagram shows the shortest chains to satisfy the definitions: six stones for a ring, 10 for a bridge and 12 for a fork. They hardly ever materialize like this, though in so called running games they may come a long way. Note again the point inside the ring: it doesn't matter whether or by whom it is occupied, nor does it matter in general what is connected to a chain, as long as it satisfies one of the definitions. Note also that a corner, though not belonging to either side, may form a connection between them.