Triad v2.0

Cameron Browne © December 2002.

Triad is an abstract board game for three players (Bar, Comma and Dot) with player-defined move order.

              1 2 3 4 5                           1 2 3 4 5
             / / / / / 6                         / / / / / 6
                      / 7                                 / 7
      A-   , . - , .   / 8                A-   , . C C C   / 8
     B-   . - , . - ,   / 9              B-   . - , C C C   / 9
    C-   . , . - , . -   /              C-   B , . - C C C   /
   D-   , . - , . - , .                D-   B B - , . - , .
  E-   - . , . - , . - ,              E-   B B B . - , . - ,
   F-   , . - , . - , .                F-   B B - , . - , .
    G-   . , . - , . -                  G-   B , . - D D D
     H-   . - , . - ,                    H-   . - , D D D
      I-   , . - , -                      I-   , . D D D

Bar   (B) owns those cells marked -
Comma (C) owns those cells marked .      Starting Position
Dot   (D) owns those cells marked ,

Start: Bar moves first.

The weakest player (or loser of the previous game) should be Bar. The strongest player (or winner of the previous game) should be Dot. 

Moves: Each turn the current player must (a) move, (b) capture, and (c) drop.

(a) The current player must move one of their pieces in a straight line in any of the six hexagonal directions, so as to land on a vacant foreign cell; any intervening cells must be empty. The player who owns the landing cell becomes the "candidate" and the other opponent becomes the "bunny".

(b) All opponents’ pieces immediately adjacent to the landing cell are captured and removed from the board. The current player is obliged to make the legal move that captures the most pieces each turn; he may choose among equals.

(c) The moving player must then drop a bunny piece on any empty point, unless a player has just been eliminated.

The candidate becomes the next player to move.

Goal: Play stops the moment any player is eliminated. The game is won by the player with the most pieces left, or else is a tie between the two remaining players if they have equal numbers left.

If the current player has no legal move then they are eliminated and the game ends.

Tournament Scoring: There are 4 pts per game. If a player wins outright by eliminating both opponents simultaneously then 4-0-0 pts are awarded, else if a player wins by eliminating one opponent then 3-1-0 pts are awarded. If the game is drawn (or a player forfeits) then 2-2-0 pts are awarded.

[Thanks to Bill Taylor and Joao Neto for valuable suggestions and play testing.]