Gopher (2021)

Gopher is a fun and simple game designed by Mark Steere to be easy to program in a computer but can also be played with pen and paper.

Rules:
Gopher is a two player game played on an initially empty, 6 spaces or larger* hexagonal grid. The two players place their own stones on the board, one stone per turn. Players are not allowed to pass.

All placements are to unoccupied cells. A Friendly Connection is an adjacency between the stones of the same color. An Enemy Connection is an adjacency between different colored stones.

Player 1 begins the game by placing a stone anywhere on the board. Then, starting with Player 2, players take turns placing a stone which forms exactly one enemy connection and no friendly connections.

The last player to place a stone wins.

• Odd number grids are not recommended by the designer.

—description from designer