The objective of the game is to capture as much space on the board as possible by surrounding them with one s stones. Any stones totally enclosed by the opponent s without leaving any adjacent empty points or qi , are considered dead and can be removed from the board by the opponent. At the end of the game, the player who has managed to secure more territory wins. The game didn t take off until 1952 when Macy s, the New York department store, ran a promotion, but in the next two years over 4,000,000 sets were sold in America. Letters are drawn unseen and players score by forming words on the board.
Components are a peg board and pegs in eight colours.
One player, the code-setter, secretly sets a code of four colours, which may include repeated colours. The second player, the code-breaker, attempts to solve the code by placing four colours in sequence. There is a simple scoring system. It was developed from Whist via Biritch, Auction Bridge and Plafond. The game dates from 1925 and is generally credited to Harold S. Vanderbilt who, together with friends, worked out the rules during some experimental games on a sea journey.