How to Play Phutball

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Phutball is an abstract two-player strategy game played on a Go board. One player controls no pieces as such; instead, both players share a single ball that sits on the board, and each tries to move it across the opponent's goal line by building chains of stones and leaping over them. The asymmetry is striking: you place stones to help yourself but those same stones can immediately be exploited by your opponent.

Players love Phutball for its combinatorial depth and the way a position can reverse in a single turn through a long sequence of jumps. It requires no equipment beyond a standard 19x19 Go board and two sets of stones, and it travels well. It is most often found at mathematics and puzzle circles, strategic games clubs, and wherever Go equipment is already to hand.

A little history

Phutball was invented by the mathematician John Horton Conway and first described in the 1976 book Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays by Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy. Its origins are therefore precisely documented, unlike many traditional games. The name is a deliberate contraction of "philosopher's football." The game has since attracted attention from combinatorial game theorists, partly because determining who wins from a given position has been shown to be computationally hard.

Setting up

1. Place the board so both players can reach all edges comfortably.
2. Designate the two short edges as goal lines: one for each player. On a standard 19x19 board, the goal line for player A is the line of intersections along row 1 (and beyond), and for player B it is row 19 (and beyond). The ball counts as scoring if it lands on or past the opponent's goal line.
3. Place the ball token on the central intersection of the board (the tengen point, row 10 column 10 on a 19x19 board).
4. Decide who plays first, by agreement or coin toss. Both players share the same pool of black men; there is no colour distinction between the two players' placements.

How to play

1. Players alternate turns throughout the game.
2. On your turn you must do exactly one of the following: (a) Place a man on any empty intersection on the board, or (b) Move the ball by making one or more jumps.
3. A jump consists of the ball leaping over a straight line of one or more adjacent men (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) and landing on the first empty intersection beyond them. All men jumped over in that single leap are immediately removed from the board.
4. After a jump, if the ball has landed on an empty intersection that is not a goal line, you may immediately make another jump from the ball's new position. You may chain as many jumps as you wish in a single turn, provided each jump is valid.
5. You are not obliged to take any particular jump, and you may stop a jump sequence at any point, leaving the ball where it landed.
6. Men may not be placed on the goal lines. The ball may pass through or land on any intersection including the goal lines.
7. There is no capturing of the ball; both players always share and contest the single ball.
8. If no move is possible (an extremely unlikely board state), the game is declared drawn, though in practice this situation essentially never arises.

Winning and scoring

You win immediately when the ball comes to rest on or beyond your opponent's goal line as a result of a jump sequence on your turn. Placing a man never scores a goal. Note that if, during your jump sequence, the ball crosses your own goal line at an intermediate point but continues jumping further, the game does not end until the ball actually stops; if it stops on or past your own goal line you lose immediately. Plan your jump chains carefully to ensure the ball halts in the right place.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns diagonal jumps: they are fully legal in standard Phutball. The ball jumps over men that are adjacent to it along any of the eight compass directions, and a single leap may travel over multiple men in a straight line in that direction, removing all of them. It may not change direction mid-leap; each individual hop is a straight line, but a turn consists of multiple such hops that can individually point in different directions.

A second frequent question is whether you must complete a jump sequence if you have started one. You are not obliged to continue: you may stop after any individual hop provided the ball is sitting on a legal (non-winning) intersection. However, you cannot "undo" a hop once made; once the ball has moved and men have been removed, those men stay off the board for that turn. If the ball lands on or beyond your own goal line mid-sequence and there is no further jump available to carry it away, you lose at that point. Players are advised to think through the full consequences of a chain before beginning it.

How to win more often

• Control the centre early. The ball starts in the middle and men placed near the centre give you jump options in all directions, while men placed at the edges only help in limited directions.
• Build jump ladders toward your opponent's goal line but keep them loose enough that your opponent cannot complete them for their own goal in a single reply.
• Count jumps, not distance. A chain of five closely spaced men lets you move the ball a large distance in one turn. Prioritise creating dense clusters on your attacking side.
• Watch your own goal line. Men placed too close to your own goal can be turned into a weapon by your opponent, who can chain jumps through them to reach your line. Keep your defensive area clear or deliberately block with sparse placements.
• Removing your opponent's men is a side effect of jumping, not a goal in itself, but do take note of which men you will strip away with a long jump: you may be clearing a path your opponent needs, which can help as much as hurt.

Variations

Smaller board Phutball

Phutball is sometimes played on a 13x13 or even 11x11 Go board, shortening the game considerably and making it more suitable for beginners or younger players. The rules are identical; only the board size and the position of the goal lines change (the far edges of the reduced board). Games typically resolve in under 20 minutes on a 13x13 board.

Mandatory jump

In this variant, if the ball can be moved by a jump sequence that scores a goal, that move must be taken rather than placing a stone. This prevents a player from ignoring an obvious winning jump to do something else, and adds a tactical layer where players must avoid setting up easy wins for their opponent even inadvertently.

Restricted placement

Some players restrict stone placement to intersections within a fixed distance of the ball (commonly five intersections by shortest path). This keeps play concentrated and prevents either player from quietly building a distant threat while the action is focused elsewhere. It tends to produce sharper, more tactical games.

Scored Phutball

Rather than playing a single game, players compete in a series and score one point per goal. The ball is returned to the centre after each goal and play resumes immediately. A match is typically first to five goals. This format rewards consistency and allows players to recover from a clever one-off sequence that might otherwise end a single game prematurely.

Phutball: frequently asked questions