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Vying Games : YINSH

YINSH was created in 2003 by designer Kris Burm as part of his acclaimed GIPF Project. YINSH has won many awards including Mensa Select in 2004, and American Games Magazine rated it the Best Abstract Strategy Game in 2005.

YINSH has elements of Othello and N-in-a-row games, giving it an unusual collection of game features.

How to Play

We'll restate the rules here, but you may prefer to read the official rules for YINSH.

YINSH is played with black and white rings and Othello like discs that are black on one side and white on the other. We'll refer to the discs as markers in the rest of this article.

Objective

The objective of the is to be the first player to remove 3 of your rings from the board. One ring is removed every time 5 markers of your color form an uninterrupted row.

Ring Placement

The game is started with the players taking turns placing their rings on the board. White moves first. The rings can be placed on any unoccupied intersection on the board, including the edges.

Movement

After all the rings are placed, the players take turns moving their rings. The player to move places a marker, with their color up, inside the ring the wish to move. For example, white would place a white marker in a white ring. The ring is then moved along a line to another open intersection, with the following restrictions:

You may move over any number of unoccupied intersections
You may move over any number of uninterrupted markers of either color, but...
- If you move over markers, there must be an unoccupied intersection on the other side, and...
- You must stop at the first unoccupied intersection (placing the ring there)

The markers are effected as follows:

The marker you placed in the ring, remains behind, unchanged
Any markers you move over are flipped.
- black markers become white markers
- white markers become black markers

Removing Markers and Rings

If a move results in 5 uninterrupted markers in-a-row of the same color, they are removed. The player then selects one of their rings for removal.

For example, if black moves in such a way that 5 black markers form a row. Black will then remove the 5-in-a-row and any black ring he wishes. The act of removing a ring scores one point. As soon as three points are scored the game ends immediately.

It is possible to create more than one 5-in-a-row at a time. If that happens, each 5-in-a-row / ring is removed one at a time.

It is possible to create overlines, or two 5-in-a-row's that share a common marker. If this happens, the player removing the markers has his or her choice as to which are removed. However, an uninterrupted row of 5 must be removed.

It is possible to create 5-in-a-row for your opponent. If that happens, you're opponent removes the markers and has his or her choice as to which ring will be removed, just as if they'd created the row themselves. After removing the markers and ring, your opponent continues with his or her turn like normal.

It is possible to create a 5-in-a-row for yourself and your opponent in the same move. If that happens you remove your markers and ring, and then your opponent removes his or her markers and ring. The player who moved always removes his or her ring first. This is important because it means it's not possible for the game to end in a 3-3 tie.

51 Markers

This game is played with 51 markers that are shared between both players. If the supply of markers is exhausted the game ends. In this event, the player with the most points wins. If the players have the same number of points, the game ends in a draw. When the supply of markers falls to 10 or fewer, you'll see a warning beneath the board.