How to Play Mū Tōrere

The Board

The board is an eight-pointed star. The eight points of the star — its outer arms — are the kewai, numbered here 0–7 going around. At the very middle is a single extra point, the pūtahi. The lines of the star tell you which points are connected:

• Each outer arm is connected to its two neighbouring arms around the ring, and to the centre.
• The centre (pūtahi) is connected to all eight outer arms.
• An arm is not connected to the arms further around the ring — only its immediate neighbours.

        ● 0
   ● 7     ● 1
●          ○            (● = black   ○ = white)
6    ·pūtahi·   2        the four ● start on arms 0–3,
●          ○            the four ○ on arms 4–7,
   ○ 5     ○ 3           and the centre starts EMPTY.
        ○ 4

Setting Up

1. Place your four black pieces on four arms of the star in a continuous block, and the opponent's four white pieces on the other four arms.
2. The centre point is left empty.
3. Black moves first. (In this version you play black; the computer plays white.)

How Pieces Move

A move slides one of your pieces to an empty point that it is directly connected to. There are exactly three kinds of move:

There is no jumping and no capturing — pieces simply slide into the one empty space, so at most one point is ever vacant on the ring (plus possibly the centre).

The Centre Rule — Why It Matters

The restriction on entering the centre is what gives Mū tōrere its bite. Because you can only slide into the centre when an enemy piece sits next to the arm you are leaving, you cannot freely park a piece in the middle to stall — and a clever opponent can deny you the centre entirely. (The earliest written accounts differ slightly on exactly when this rule applies; some restrict it only to the opening moves. This version applies it on every centre entry, which is the most common reconstruction and keeps the game sharp.)

How to Win

1. Trap your opponent. When it is your opponent's turn and they have no legal move — every piece blocked — they lose, and you win. There is no other way to win; pieces are never captured.
2. Perfect play is a draw. Mū tōrere has been completely solved: if both players play perfectly, neither can be trapped and the game is a draw. A win therefore comes from a single mistake — so play patiently and wait for the opening.

Strategy Tips

Cultural History

Mū tōrere is one of the very few board games the Māori are documented to have played before European contact. It is associated especially with the Ngāti Porou of the East Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand, who are recorded playing it on a slab of wood, a piece of bark, or simply marks drawn in the earth, using pebbles or beans as pieces. The eight-pointed star with its outer kewai and central pūtahi became a familiar motif of the game.

The rules given here are a standard reconstruction. Early written sources — from the ethnographer Elsdon Best to the mathematician Marcia Ascher, who analysed the game's strategy — diverge on small details, particularly on exactly when the centre-entry restriction applies, so no single fixed canon should be claimed.

A frequently recounted anecdote tells of the Ngāti Hauā chief Wiremu Tāmihana offering to play Governor George Grey a game of mū tōrere for the stakes of the country — an offer Grey is said to have declined. It is best treated as a recorded anecdote rather than firm history, but it captures how seriously the game's strategy was taken.