Quoridor
Deconstructed by: Spencer Curtis
Quoridor is an abstract strategy board game played with 2 or 4 players created by Mirko Marchesi and published by Gigamic Games. Quoridor won the Mensa Mind Game award in 1997 and the Game of the Year Award in USA, France, Canada, and Belgium.
Goal of the Game: The sole purpose of this game is to reach your opposite baseline before your opponent(s). In trying to accomplish this you will need to place fences in order to block the other player(s) and move strategically along the board.
The Core Mechanics: In the game of Quoridor the mechanics are simple; a player chooses on his/her turn to do one of two things: move their pawn one space or place a fence down to block another player. Because this game has such elegant mechanics you will never see the same game played twice.
Space of the Game: The physical board of Quoridor can be seen below. It is a beautiful yet simple design consisting of 9 rows and 9 columns of squares in the play area. To the sides there are spaces to store each player’s fences and in between each square in the play area there are grooves for the potential placement of fences during game play.
Objects, Attributes, and States: As seen above, within the game of Quoridor there are 3 different types of objects: the game board itself, the 4 pawn pieces, and the 20 fence pieces. Within the Quoridor game box you will find these items along with a rulebook and a pouch for your pawns and fences. The pawns’ attributes in game play are that they can move one space at a time either horizontally or vertically frontwards, side-to-side, or backwards. If there is a fence in front of a pawn then a state occurs where the pawn must find a way around the fence to get to its opposite baseline. We mentioned how the pawns are only able to move horizontally or vertically in space, however there are certain instances where the pawn is eligible to move diagonally. Let’s take a look at some examples. For the sake of these pictures let’s assume it is the white pawn’s turn:
In this example we can see that the red pawn is adjacent to the white pawn so in the white pawn’s turn it can go either left, right, backwards, or diagonally to the left or right of the red pawn.
This example is similar to the first however the white pawn is limited now since there is a fence on the red pawn’s right side. The white pawn’s options are the same except for diagonally to the right since there is a fence blocking.
In this state we see that both pawns are adjacent to each other with no fences blocking anything near them. In a case like this the white pawn can actually jump over the red pawn and land in the space behind it thus gaining an extra square towards its end goal. This can only happen if there is no fence directly behind the red pawn.
In a 4-player game a situation such as this may arise. In this case the white pawn can move diagonally to the left or right of the red pawn however it cannot jump over the two pawns and land behind the yellow pawn. A pawn can only jump over a pawn if it’s a single space jump and if there are no fences in the way of the jump.
So those are some examples of pawn states, lets now take a look at a fence’s attributes:
In this picture we can see two ways that the fences can be placed legally and one placement that is illegal. Fences can be placed vertically or horizontally but only if they occupy two squares. With that being said we can see that the fence placed furthest right is an illegal placement, as it doesn’t occupy two squares.
Actions: Before the game starts you must set up the board. If you are playing with two people then put the two pawn pieces opposite each other on their baselines in the middle square. With 4 people you simply do the same with the other two pieces. When playing a two-player game each player has 10 fences so you would need to put the fences in their storage slots. With 4 players each player has 5 fences. Usually I like to keep my fences in front of me so they don’t get confused with another player’s.
Operative: The two main actions of Quoridor are moving your pawn piece and placing a fence.
Resultant: In doing these actions you may block another player or elongate their path to the side they need to get to. In 4-player games you’ll find that when 1 or 2 players don’t stand a chance any longer they may gang up on another player and use their fences solely to make sure that player doesn’t win. This is the experience one finds when playing with more people. Either it’s everyone for themselves or it’s everyone against you.
Rules: The objective of the game is to get to the other side first which is why probably the most important rule is that you must leave an opening for your opponent(s) to get to their goal baseline. This means that you cannot use your fences to completely block someone off from reaching their goal. You may elongate and wind their path to your liking but there must be a way for them to reach their opposite side. Placing the fences properly is another rule to follow when playing Quoridor. The picture above shows what placements are legal and which are not. Players must keep in mind they can only move once per turn or set one fence per turn not both. Once you run out of fences you must move your pawn every turn. Fences cannot be moved once they’re placed and pawns cannot jump over fences for any reason. With all of that being said the game of Quoridor is pretty simple in understanding how to play, it’s the strategy that is tricky.
Skills Players Learn: As I mentioned previously there are an innumerable amount of options when playing this game, which gives it its great playability. I have played it several times already and not once have I encountered two similar games. Here are a couple examples of end game shots:
In this game I was white and my fence storage column is the empty one on the right. My goal was to make it up while red’s was to make it down, and even though neither of us had reached our opposite baseline we could see that white has been defeated. White, having no more fences left and having more squares to travel to win the red, automatically loses. Since we knew this much we didn’t have to finish the game. Red was the victor.
Here we see that white won by using his fences to make a path to the opposite side and even though red still had some fences left there was nothing she could do since putting a fence down in whites path would have been an illegal placement due to the fact that white wouldn’t have had any other opening to get to the other side.
Throughout playing this games countless times with others I found the key element in this game is to use your fences wisely. The majority of the time I lost it was because I had used my fences too soon and too recklessly. This game relies 100% on the players’ deduction abilities. There is literally no luck involved, only strategy, which is why it is so important to always keep an open mind and try different techniques, because just like Chess, this game focuses on the other player’s mistakes to help you win.
The Reed Strategy: This opening consists in placing, during the first two moves of the game, two walls on the third row in front of the opponent with a single gap in the middle. This opening is attributed to Dr. Scott Reed (Edinburgh, UK), a known military strategist and frequent player. A counter-strategy to the Reed opening is to place two horizontal walls on the third row, one at the extreme left and one at the extreme right, which effectively reduces both players' path counts.
The Shiller Opening: Players 1 and 2 advance their pawns three times each, then player 1 places one wall vertically at the bottom of player 1’s board, providing two paths for player 2 to win while maintaining just one path for player 1. The Shiller opening implements the strategy of maximizing the opponent's path count and of minimizing one's own path count. Larry Shiller (Wilton, CT) is a known math educator, software author and consultant, and author of an upcoming book on Quoridor strategy.
