Quoridor - Rules, History & Strategy Guide

Quoridor was created by Mirko Marchesi and published in 1997 by French game company Gigamic. It won the Mensa Select award and multiple other honors for its elegant simplicity.

The game distills abstract strategy into two clean choices each turn: move or wall. That simplicity makes it easy to learn but remarkably deep once you start thinking several moves ahead.

The goal is to be the first player to reach the opposite side of the board.

1. On your turn, either move your pawn one square orthogonally or place a wall.
2. Walls are two squares long and block movement through those squares.
3. Each player has 10 walls total for the entire game.
4. You cannot place a wall that completely blocks your opponent from reaching their goal row.
5. The first player to reach any square on the opposite row wins.

Strong Quoridor play combines efficient pathfinding with disruptive wall placement.

• Place early walls near the center where they affect the most possible paths.
• Force your opponent into long detours while keeping your own path short.
• Balance wall use: saving walls for the endgame is powerful, but waiting too long means your opponent races ahead.
• Count shortest paths for both players before deciding whether to move or wall.

The standard game is 2-player on a 9x9 board. A 4-player variant exists where each player starts from one edge with 5 walls each. Some variants use larger boards or asymmetric wall counts.