Standard Rules of GIPF

Hey there! Let me break down the standard rules of GIPF for you. It’s a game that follows the same basic rules as the regular version, but with a cool addition called GIPF-pieces. These are made up of two regular pieces stacked on top of each other. How awesome is that?

GIPF stands for “potential”. On one hand, just like in the basic game, you have to follow the rule of bringing a piece into play each turn. But here’s where it gets interesting – you also have to make sure that your potential, your GIPF, stays in play. This means you always need to have at least one GIPF-piece on the board. Pretty cool, right?

Remark:

Now, here’s an important thing to note: even though a GIPF-piece is made up of two basic pieces, on the board, it only counts as one piece. Talk about a game-changer!

Begin

When you play GIPF, you and your opponent begin with 18 basic pieces. The board starts in the same position as before, but now each player also has 3 GIPF-pieces on the board. These GIPF-pieces replace some of the basic pieces. Take a look at Illustration 1 to see how the GIPF-pieces are arranged.

What are GIPF-pieces?

1. Here’s the big difference between a basic piece and a GIPF-piece: you don’t have to capture a GIPF-piece if you don’t want to. That means, when a GIPF-piece is in a row that needs to be removed from the board, you can decide whether to take it or leave it. Normally, you’d want to take your opponent’s GIPF-piece, but sometimes it might be smarter to do something different.

In this scenario, I’m playing a game called GIPF. Let me explain how a specific move works. In illustration 8, I see that there are three white basic pieces and one black basic piece on the board. The white player will most likely take the black GIPF-piece, but they will leave the two white GIPF-pieces on the board.

Now, here comes the interesting part. If two rows of at least 4 pieces of the same color intersect each other and the spot of intersection is occupied by a GIPF-piece, then the player has a choice. They can choose to take either one or two rows from the board.

If they choose to capture only one row, including the GIPF-piece on the intersection spot, then there won’t be a second row to capture anymore. On the other hand, if they decide to take one row and leave the GIPF-piece on its spot, they will have to capture the second row as well, with or without the GIPF-piece.

Just a quick note:

If a player captures a GIPF-piece of their own color, they cannot use it as a GIPF-piece again. Instead, they must return it to the reserve and consider it as two separate basic pieces.

Winning the Game in Two Ways

Now, there are two ways to win this game. First, you can triumph by taking all of your opponent’s GIPF pieces off the board. This means removing every single one.

Alternatively, you can also win by depleting your opponent’s reserve. In simpler terms, this means making them run out of pieces to play.