A chess player who sits down at an Aadu Puli Attam board will recognise a good deal. Two players take turns, nothing is hidden and nothing is left to dice, and a game can end in a draw when a position comes round for the third time or the captures dry up. Almost everything else works differently, starting with the two sides, which are nothing alike.
This guide is for chess players: what changes at the board, which rules will sound familiar and which chess habits help. The Aadu Puli Attam rules here are the standard rules, exactly as the Three Tigers app plays them, and they are all in the complete rules of Aadu Puli Attam. The chess rules are the Laws of Chess of FIDE, the international chess federation.
The differences at a glance
- The sides. In chess, both players have the same sixteen pieces. Here one player has three tigers and the other fifteen goats.
- The board. Chess uses sixty-four squares. Aadu Puli Attam uses twenty-three points joined by ten lines.
- The start. Chess begins with all thirty-two pieces on the board. Here only the tigers start on the board, and the goats enter one per turn.
- Captures. In chess, every piece can capture. Here only the tigers can, and only by jumping.
- The win. In chess, the aim is checkmate. Here the tigers win with five captures, and the goats win by trapping all three tigers.
- The draws. Both games have a repetition rule and a fifty-move rule, but they count differently.
Two sides that want different things
In chess, both armies are the same, and both players want to checkmate the other king. Aadu Puli Attam is a hunt game. The tigers can capture and the goats never can, so the tigers hunt, the goats defend, and each side wins in its own way:
- The tigers win as soon as they have captured five goats.
- The goats win when it is the tigers' turn and no tiger can move or capture.
There is no king and no check, and the goats can lose four goats and still win. Each side needs a plan of its own, and our tiger strategy guide and goat strategy guide give one for each.
Points and lines instead of squares
The board is a fan of lines. Four sloping lines run from a single point at the top, the apex, down to a base line, three rows cross them, and two short side lines close the edges. Pieces sit on the twenty-three points where the lines meet, and a move is one step along a line to the next point, if it is empty.
That one rule replaces the different moves of the chess pieces. Every goat moves the same way, and so does every tiger, which can also jump to capture. The apex lies on four lines and every other point on two, so no point has more than four neighbours, and the six corner points have only two. To make a board, draw one at home.
Pieces that arrive one at a time
Chess starts with every piece on the board, and White moves first. Aadu Puli Attam starts with only the three tigers on the board, one on the apex and two on the middle points of the top row, and the goats always move first.
On each goat turn, the goat player places one goat on any empty point, and the goats on the board stay where they are until all fifteen have entered. The tigers do not wait: from their first turn they move one step or capture. So for fifteen goat turns, one side is still bringing its pieces into play while the other is already hunting. When the last goat lands, each side moves one piece one step per turn, or the tigers capture.
Captures by jumping
In Aadu Puli Attam only the tigers capture, and they do it by jumping: a tiger jumps over a goat on the next point along a line and lands on the empty point directly beyond it, on the same line. The goat leaves the board for good.
- Goats never capture. Only the goat player ever loses pieces, and a lost goat never comes back.
- No jump around a bend. The tiger, the goat and the landing point must be in one straight line.
- No jumping tigers. A tiger can only jump a goat.
- One capture per turn in the standard rules. Chains of jumps belong to the multiple jumps variant, one of the three family variants.
- Capturing is optional. A tiger may make a quiet move instead, unless every move the tigers have left is a capture.
Trapped, not checkmated
With no king, there is no checkmate. The goats win by taking away every move the tigers have: when it is the tigers' turn and no tiger can move or capture, the game is over. That trap can close at any time, even before the last goat has entered.
Being stuck means something different too. In chess, a player with no legal move who is not in check is stalemated, and the game is drawn. In Aadu Puli Attam the tigers can never pass, so tigers with no move have lost. The goats cannot be stalemated in the standard game: while goats are in hand there is always an empty point to place one on, and once all fifteen have entered, at least one goat always has an empty point beside it.
Two draw rules with chess counterparts
Both draw rules have a chess counterpart, and neither starts counting until the last goat has been placed:
- Threefold repetition. The same position, with the same side to move, appears for the third time.
- Fifty tiger moves without a capture. The tigers make fifty moves in a row, and none of them is a capture.
The details are not the chess ones:
- Nobody claims the draw. In chess, a player has to claim either draw, and without a claim the game ends only at the fifth appearance or after seventy-five moves each. Here the game ends on the move that completes either rule.
- A position is simpler. In chess, castling and en passant rights are part of the position. Here a position is just which points hold tigers, which hold goats and whose turn it is.
- Only tiger moves count. In chess, the count is fifty moves by each player, and a pawn move or a capture restarts it. Here the goats' moves never add to the count, and only a capture restarts it.
Our guide to the draw rules explains both counts in full.
Chess habits that help
Some chess ideas carry straight over to the 23-point board:
- Look for double attacks. In chess, a fork is one piece attacking two or more enemy pieces at once. A tiger does the same when it threatens two goats along two of its lines, and the goats can close only one gap per turn.
- Count the moves before you capture. A tiger that jumps into a corner has only two exits there and is easy to fence in, so count the moves you will have from the landing point first.
- Use the obligation to move. Chess players call it zugzwang when every legal move makes a position worse. The tigers can never pass, so when all three are nearly stuck, a quiet goat move can force a tiger onto a worse point. It cuts both ways: once all the goats have entered, the goats must move every turn too, and every goat move leaves a point empty.
- Do not let a won game slip into a draw. Moving the same pieces back and forth gives the other side the chance of a repetition. When you are ahead, make every move tighten the position.
How to practise
The board on our How to play page plays the standard rules against a simple opponent, and you can choose "Play goats" or "Play tigers". In the Three Tigers app, Versus AI has Easy, Medium and Hard opponents, pass and play shares one phone between two players, and the tutorial's six lessons go from placing a goat to trapping a tiger. These three modes are free, work offline and need no account. The app is on the App Store for iPhone with iOS 17 or later, and on Google Play for Android.
Frequently asked questions
Is Aadu Puli Attam like chess? In some ways. Both are games for two with no dice and nothing hidden, and both have a repetition rule and a fifty-move rule. But the sides are unequal, only the tigers capture, and the game is won by five captures or a trap, not by checkmate.
Who moves first? The goats, always. The first move of the game is a goat placement.
Is there stalemate in Aadu Puli Attam? Not as a draw. If no tiger can move or capture on the tigers' turn, the goats win, and in the standard game the goats always have a legal move.
Do I have to claim a draw? No. The game ends as a draw on the move that brings a position back for the third time, or on the tigers' fiftieth move in a row without a capture.
Which side should a chess player try first? New players usually start with the goats, because placing them one at a time is the best way to get to know the board. Then swap: the tigers are easier to learn and harder to win with against a careful goat player.