THE GAME OF “DODGE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1040, 2 August 1930, Page 29

THE GAME OF “DODGE”

“Dodge.” is a home-made game, and boys and girls can have a great deal of fun with it. It is a handy game to know, because you can play it anywhere. It has a board of nine squares, three on a side, and it requires six Y’ou can mark the board on the ground when you are playing out-of-doors, and use stones for the “men.” Indoors you can draw the board on a sheet of paper, and use buttons or checker-men or any sort of counters, so long as you have two kinds for the two sides. Each player ranges his men in a

row on his own side of the board, and each in turn moves one of his men either straight forward or corner-wise-forward (diagonally) or sideways, but is not allowed to move backward or diagonally backward. There is no “taking,” The aim of each player is to march liis men to form a new row on one of the, other threo sides of the board. You see. he starts from one side, so there are threo sides left, and he would get there very quickly if it were not for the other player, whose men are in the way. Sometimes he is able to get a row either to the right or to the left, but not if tfie other player is clever enough to prevent him. Each dodges liis about to hinder the other’s advance, and as no man can get back, the teams work forward through each other till one or the other player wins by being first to complete the row on the opposite side of the board from where ho started. Thero is one rule to remember which i

prevents any game being drawn. Sometimes a player thinks it wise to leave a man in his own back row, so that the other player’s team, when it has marched too far to make a side-row, will be hindered from filling up that row because the square is occupied. Tho rule is, when you need just the one move to win the game, and your opponent’s piece is holding the square, you can make him move that place in his next turn. Players take turns at the first move in the game. When a player’s pieces are penned

up so' that ho cannot make a move, he misses his turn. The game is not so simple as you might think, for even on the nine, squares the various ways of moving make a great variety of possible moves, and it is hard to tell just how one ought to move to be playing the best ! game. You wish to get your men I forward quickly, but you also wish to hinder the other player from getting his men forward quickly, and sometimes it is very puzzling to know the best move. The player who starts seems to have the advantage, but he does not always win the game. Perhaps if ho knew the very best moves to make, he would win every game. The pictures will help you to understand how “Dodge” is played. No. 1 shows the pieces ready for a start No. 2 shows a. winning row on the side; No. 3 a winning row on the end: and No. 4 shows the position when a player can be told to move out his man from his own row.