Morpion Solitaire

Morpion Solitaire - Origin

The origin of this game inspired by two older games (Morpion and Solitaire) seems to be unknown, but is at least 40 years old in France.

The oldest testimony that I have found is from Daniel Goffinet, mathematics teacher in Math-Sup and Math-Spé classes at Saint-Etienne, France: he used to play this game in 1962 or 1963, when he was pupil in Première or Terminale classes, at Lycée Paul Valéry of Paris. Unfortunately he doesn't know the origin, he learnt the game from other pupils. At that time, the game was already called "Morpion Solitaire".

Pierre Berloquin in 2008 (Tours 1939 - )
Author of numerous books on games and puzzles. Several of his books are translated in English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese,...

Even if we don't know the origin of the game, we know the person at the origin of its success: many thanks to Pierre Berloquin, responsible of the large success of this game in France during the 70s. I played myself, and other students too, when I was in Math-Sup and Math-Spé during some boring lessons (hmmm... no, I will not tell who the boring teachers were!). At that time, he was the author of a regular column named "Jeux et Paradoxes" published in the French monthly magazine Science & Vie http://www.science-et-vie.com. He presented new grids in his column as soon as a new record was found by a reader: from the first record of Millington given in the issue of April 1974 to the last record of Bruneau in April 1976. This last grid published in Berloquin's column is still today the world record of the standard 5T game.

Pierre Berloquin does not know the origin of the game, he probably learnt it from Bernard Lemaire who sent him the first record grid done in 1972 by C. W. Millington, Manchester. On the origin of the variants, all invented after the standard 5T game:

The 5D variant was first played in the late 1970s by Arthur Langerman. Questioned in 2008 by his son Stefan, he said it is very possible that he changed the rules (touching -> disjoint) by mistake: some person he knows just taught him Morpion Solitaire very quickly.
The 4T and 4D variants were invented in 2002 by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, Arthur Langerman, and Stefan Langerman when they worked on their paper later published in 2004.
Other variants were invented in 1974-1975 by the readers of Berloquin's columns: MS2, MS2 bis, MS3, MS4, or modifying the initial pattern.
And in this website, still other variants!

If you know a published reference before 1974, or if you played this game before 1962, send me a message! Thanks to Tangente (mathematical French magazine): in the March-April 2008 issue, they asked readers to send their testimony. But unfortunately, nothing has been received on the origin, or on any earlier reference.

Origin of the words

Two French names:

Morpion is a French name initially coming from two French words: "mords pion" pronounced exactly the same way, the "ds" being silent. These two words mean in English: "bite pawn". In our case here, an easy explanation would be that we bite (or cross out) the pawns (or pieces, or pegs, or small crosses, or dots...) when we draw a line on them. Be aware that "morpion" has also two completely different meanings in French slang:

brat (kid)...
and crab (louse)!!!

Solitaire is a French name meaning "alone, loner". Exactly the same word can be used as an adjective meaning "solitary, lonely". This means of course that this game is played alone.

Morpion and Solitaire are two games which existed separately, before the Morpion Solitaire:

Morpion is similar to a Tic-Tac-Toe game. Played by two persons, but instead of a 3x3 board with 3 points to align, the standard Morpion in France is played on an infinite board with 5 dots to align. The winner is the first to succeed in drawing a line. Similar to Connect-Five or Gomoku games. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomoku or http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Gomoku.html
Solitaire is a very old game played alone. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_solitaire or http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PegSolitaire.html. We can remark that one of the most common initial patterns of the Solitaire is a cross, as it is for the Morpion Solitaire (outline of a cross). As quoted by Maurice Kraïtchik in his Mathematical Recreations (p. 298), a well-known Solitaire player was Leibniz who wrote in 1716: "The game called Solitaire pleases me much". This game was also studied by Edouard Lucas in his Récréations Mathématiques, first volume, with the same quotation of Leibniz but more detailed (p.90).

Oldest known papers

If I am right, there are eight columns in which Pierre Berloquin wrote of the game in his "Jeux et Paradoxes" column of Science & Vie. He mainly called the game "Morpion Solitaire", or sometimes "Automorpion":

N°679, April 1974, pages 144-145, "Les records à battre du Morpion Solitaire" (see the images below)
N°681, June 1974, pages 138-139, "Le Morpion Solitaire, 160 alignements à battre"
N°686, November 1974, pages 148-149, "Les nouveaux records de l'automorpion"
N°692, May 1975, pages 134-135, "Morpion Solitaire : l'épidémie s'étend"
N°694, July 1975, pages 128-129, "L'âge du capitaine et celui de sa fille" (last paragraph titled "Au sujet du morpion solitaire")
N°698, November 1975, pages 160-161, "Le salon de l'automorpion"
N°703, April 1976, pages 130-131, "Mini-morpion et nouveaux problèmes de dominos"
N°713, February 1977, page 122, "Opérations : coups de points"

Science & Vie, April 1974: first known paper on the Morpion Solitaire, by Pierre Berloquin
(click on the images to enlarge them, or download the PDF file, 2.4Mb)

Some years later, Michel Brassinne wrote a paper in the disappeared French magazine Jeux & Stratégie, mainly using results previously published by Berloquin. This paper was followed by two short postscripts:

N°16, August-September 1982, pages 28-29, "Découvrez... le morpion solitaire"
N°17, October-November 1982, page 96, "Post-Scriptum au n°16. Morpion Solitaire."
N°18, December 1982 - January 1983, page 101, "Post-Scriptum au n°17. Morpion Solitaire."

Thanks to Michel Brassinne who has autorized me to scan his publications of 1982:

Jeux & Statégie, August-September 1982: paper on Morpion Solitaire, by Michel Brassinne
(click on the images to enlarge them)

Jeux & Stratégie, the two postscriptums are marked here in yellow
(click on the images to enlarge them)