IS THIS THE WORLD’S SIMPLEST GAME?
This game is so simple that when a group of primary school pupils were shown it, they quickly discovered the winning strategy and then decided that it was no longer worth playing. Can you do the same?
The rules are extremely simple. The single piece is placed somewhere on the board, and then the two players take it in turns to move it from the square it is on to any new square, so long as they move it in a straight line parallel to the sides of the board. (In other words, like a rook in chess.) Every move, however, must be either down the board, towards the bottom edge, or leftwards, towards the left-hand edge. The winning player is the one who makes the final move on to the square marked END.
We show a typical starting position. It is your turn to play. What move do you play to make your opponent squeal?