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Zèrtz is the third game in the Gipf project. The game features a shrinking board and an object that promotes sacrifice combinations. Since neither player owns on-board pieces, maintaining the initiative is of fundamental importance.
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Rules
Equipment
Playing pieces are 6 white, 8 gray, and 10 black marbles, and at least 37 rings, each of which can hold a marble. Advanced players use up to 61 rings.
Setup
Players place the rings on a flat surface and arrange them as a packed hexagon, as regular as possible (the "board"). With 37 rings this is a perfect hexagon with four rings on a side. The marbles go into a shared pool.
Object
Under the basic rules, the object is to capture three white marbles, four grays, five blacks, or two of each color. Under tournament rules, the object is to capture four whites, five grays, six blacks, or three of each color.
Dropping
If no jumps are available, the player whose turn it is must drop a marble of any color onto an empty ring of the board, and take a removable ring from the board. A ring is removable if it can be detached by sliding it away on the table surface without displacing other rings. If removing a ring produces a set of rings, called an island, with a marble on each ring in the group, all of these rings are also removed, and the player whose move created the island captures all the marbles on it.
If no ring is removable, the player's turn ends when he drops a marble. If no marbles are available in the shared pool, the player must drop one of his captured marbles instead.
Jumping
If any two marbles are adjacent on the board, and there is room for one to jump the other, landing on a ring immediately opposite the other, a player must jump instead of dropping. When a marble is jumped, it is captured by the jumping player. It is similar to the compulsory jumping rule in Checkers: the player must continue to jump as long as additional jumps by the same ball are possible.
No rings are removed during a jumping sequence.
Variants
Zèrtz+11
This is the game of Zèrtz played with 11 extra rings, forming an oblong hexagon. This is the current standard for serious tournament play.
Blitz
A short version of the game can be played by using only 5 white marbles, 7 gray, and 9 black marbles. In this case, the goal is to capture only three whites, four grays, five blacks, or two of each color.
External links
- The official Zèrtz site (http://www.gipf.com/zertz/)
- The Zèrtz Boardgamegeek entry. (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewitem.php3?gameid=528)
- A Zèrtz strategy guide. (http://www.scat.demon.co.uk/zertz/strategy.htm)
- Play Zèrtz on Richard's PBeM server. (http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/zertz.html)
- Play Online at Boardspace.net (http://www.boardspace.net/)
| Preceded by: Tamsk | The Gipf project | Followed by: Dvonn |