Merrills Journey

Master of Merrills - Chapter 3 - Looking back: Lessons Learned. What was the most important lesson you learned from tournament play? I learned that without diligence, disciplined analysis, learning, playing attentively and training, you will not go very far. No alcohol should be taken before a match and proper nutrition should be followed. You have to think like a professional sportsperson. Eat well, be nourished, but nothing should be too heavy. You don’t also want to get hungry mid tournament! Part of proper preparation is to be well rested and be without unnecessary stress. It is not correct to arrive at the venue match day itself. You should arrive at the venue at least one to two days before, and be able to acclimatise to the area. You want to be fit and healthy, but should not do a physical sport by bicycle  or other such exercise , because that costs too much energy. A successful performance at a well  attended  tournament is impossible - at least in my experience ...

I apologise for the delay in publishing this. It should have been done in June not July - but better late than never. I hope people enjoy reading this next instalment as much as the first. I've tried to make it a little longer than the first in order to make up for lost time. Feedback is welcome as always. Chapter 2 - Learning the Game. The long road to success.  Tell us about some of your early experiences playing the game: It was around the summer time of 1977. Just over 40 years ago I dared to play for the first time at the public garden (playing park) of Bern's Bärenplatz against a woman who was considered to be strong.   She was called Epa-Marie, because she worked in a wholesale store called EPA - (this chain doesn't exist anymore). We played, but each time she blocked me out, or so I thought, because at that time I knew no more about the game and its theory than a cow knows about climbing. In any case, it was only later that I learned that it was I who was blocking m...

Markus Schaub needs very little introduction in the world of Mills or Nine Men's Morris. The most successful player of all time, record holder for winning 13 tournaments in a row, the player to boast an unbeaten streak lasting over 14 months and the first person ever to celebrate a hundred first places. Grandmaster since 1992 and the first non Englishman to win the World title in 1995, put him at the very top of the Mill tree.  Master of Merrills - is a book that has been 2 years in the making. Here on this blog I will be serialising once a month the conversations we have had about his life and the game. This introduction will be purposefully short on biographical matters as over the next few chapters you will get an in-depth insight into the man who spent years of his life perfecting his game. We will discuss, preparation, strategy, health, mental attitude and a host of other wonderful stories that will bring to life the long career in Mills that he had.  Later on in the book...

I am a little behind schedule in writing this post. 2022 was not the best of years for me, for many reasons that are beyond the scope of this blog. Still, there was something that was consistent throughout the year, and that was my continued passion to learn this fabulous game. So how did I do?   Firstly, I have definitely improved. My game is on a much better footing than before, and I have had moments where I have beaten some of the best players that I currently play against. I am also getting many more draws against the top players, and losing is less frequent. On the down side, I am still playing mostly slow games on turn based sites.  I have spent more time playing 5 and 10 minute matches in real time but not enough to really make a difference in that area. My thought processes are slow at best. I also did not spend huge amounts of time studying the game this year, (mostly for reasons stated above) and I learned mostly by simply playing a great deal, and analysi...

Sadly analyzing your Mill games is not easy. In chess, there are literally hundreds of sites, apps and computer programs with engines to do much of the work for you. An engine that can be carried on your mobile phone is easily enough to defeat all but the very strongest of players.  As it has been mention before, the game of Mill, (Nine Men's Morris), unlike chess has been solved. This means that with the required data you can analyze all possible moves of your games and have a database tell you where you went wrong.  So where can we find such a thing? Well firstly there is the wonderful program of Brillliant Mill by (among others) current top players in the world  György Bándy  and Ferenc Voleman. We will not discuss this here as it needs it's own post but is an invaluable tool for the study of the game. We will first look elsewhere.  If you have not purchased Brilliant Mill, for now you are in luck, since the database can be found online at two locations. I wi...

The first thing I should mention about Sanmill is that I have been fortunate to have been in contact with Calcitem studios over the last year. The second being that I can safely say this is the hardest working app developer I have ever met. In my quest to find the perfect game or app to study and play Mill, I have had the pleasure in corresponding with a few developers, but none come close to Calcitem studio. What started as an app that had alot of potential, but also a fair few mistakes and rough edges, turned out, in a matter of months to be the strongest and most versatile Mill apps on the play store. The developer worked tirelessly to fix bugs, improve the AI, the UI, as well as listen to all the comments that people were giving him. What he ended up with was a giant of an app. And it's still in Beta! So why all the praise? What can Sanmill do that others can't. Well, to begin, it plays very well. If you can beat it on any level above somewhere in the middle, then you are a...

Approximately one year ago I befriended Markus Schaub on social media to begin what was for me to be the start of a beautiful journey. Having started and stopped the study of countless games, I had longed to find the right game for me. One that was challenging, but also related to my personality.  In Merrills, not only did I find the game, but the person (Markus) to help and guide me, as well as many personalities within the game that were happy to share and connect their experiences. A year on, where am I on my journey to becoming an expert player in this game? What have been the ups and downs. What have I learned so far that could be interesting for future learners? First and foremost my love for the game has not diminished. I have played literally every day this whole year. I can't think of a day I did not at least play a few moves on-line or against an app. I cannot think of any instance in my life, even in music where I have done that. The game has really pulled me in. As pred...

Sadly Nine Men's Morris is horrendously lacking in online material. For such a beautiful and complex game, this for me was the biggest disappointment when starting. For the only real active site on the game we have Rainer Rosenberger to thank at https://muehlespieler.de. This is quite an in depth dive into the game, from a strong player who is a regular on the tournament circuit. The site is in German, but these days easily translated with Google. Here you will find lots of information about the game, including computer players, information on the variants, tournaments, history of the game, and best of all exercises on how to play better. This is clearly the best part of the site and well worth downloading the free e book - or doing the exercises online. It should be noted though, that the material on the site is fairly old. Many of the programs no longer exists and it has not been updated in a while. Still, it is an excellent resource and a must read. The other place to go...

One of the big advantages of learning an abstract strategy game today as opposed to 20 years ago is that there are plenty of ways to play the game against a computer opponents. Just as in chess, checkers and backgmmon, there are no shortage of apps and computer challengers.  Having said that, one must be very careful. Quantity is definitely not quality in this case, and there are relatively few that are worthwhile playing any length of time. A good app or desktop program can gain you plenty of time in learning the game but the opposite is also true. Here, just like the post on online play I will cover just the basics. Where to start. The professional software and programs will come later. If you have a mobile device the place to start would be Mills by Lite Games. I will say right away, it is not the strongest of the bunch but, for beginners it is enough to get your teeth into. If you can regularly beat the very hard difficulty, then move on and get something else. The reason I cho...