Rhode is a two-player abstract board game invented by Luis Bolaños Mures in 2016. This game is a member of the connection game family, including such games as Hex, Slither or Quax.

• Board
• Objective
• Definitions
• Play

Rhode is played on the intersections (points) of a square grid. The left and right edges of the board are colored white; the top and bottom edges are colored black.

The game is won by the player who completes a chain of orthogonally adjacent stones of their color touching the two opposite board edges of their color. A corner is considered to be part of both adjoining edges.

No draws are possible in Rhode.

A weak pair is a set of two like-colored, diagonally adjacent stones such that there is no like-colored stone orthogonally adjacent to both. Examples of white weak pairs:

A crosscut is a 2x2 set of stones consisting of two diagonally adjacent black stones and two diagonally adjacent white stones, like this:

A stone can be part of several crosscuts at the same time.

The game begins with an empty board. Each player has an allocated color: Black or White. Black plays first, then turns alternate.

At the start of your turn, if there are any friendly weak pairs on the board, you must place a stone of your color on an empty point that is orthogonally adjacent to the two stones in one of those pairs. If there are no such pairs, you must place a stone of your color on any empty point.

After a placement, all friendly stones, except the one just placed, that are part of any crosscuts are removed from the board, after which the turn ends. There will be no crosscuts remaining on the board at this point.

The pie rule is used in order to make the game fair. This means that White will have the option, on their first turn only, to change sides instead of making a regular move.