Morpion Solitaire - Records Table

Morpion Solitaire - Records Table

The 4T and 4D games are now solved, but 5T and 5D games of this table are still open, and also these records of main variants:

190 / 102 moves (5T# / 5D#)
216 moves (5T+)
317 moves (5T++)

If you construct a grid with a larger number of moves for any game, standard or variant, then you have a new record: send me a message!

Game ⁽¹⁾		Moves	Creator	Country	Date
Points in each line	Touching or Disjoint model	Moves	Creator	Country	Date
5	T	149⁽²⁾	Charles William Millington	UK	September 1972 ⁽²⁾
		152	Charles William Millington	UK	June 1974 ^(3-)
		162	Rémy Daubié	France	November 1974 ⁽³⁾
		163	Charles William Millington	UK	July 1975 ^(3-)
		164	three different grids independently found by Michel Szeps, Joseph Martin, Yoland Strehl	France	November 1975 ^(3-)
		170	Charles-Henri Bruneau	France	April 1976 ⁽³⁾
		172	Christopher D. Rosin	USA	August 2010
		177			May 2011⁽⁴⁾
		178			August 2011
	D	64	Arthur Langerman	Belgium	? ≤ January 1996
		65	Stefan Schmieta	USA	October 11 1996
		66	Stefan Schmieta	USA	October 15 1996
		68	Arthur Langerman	Belgium	October 1999
		69	Bernard Helmstetter	France	September 2005
		74	Heikki Hyyrö and Timo Poranen	Finland	December 2006
		76	Tristan Cazenave	France	December 2006
		78	Tristan Cazenave	France	May 2007
		79	Heikki Hyyrö and Timo Poranen	Finland	June 2007
		80	Tristan Cazenave	France	February 2008
		82	Christopher D. Rosin	USA	August 2010
4	T	56	Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Arthur Langerman, and Stefan Langerman	USA - Belgium	May 2004
	T	62⁽⁵⁾	Heikki Hyyrö and Timo Poranen	Finland	October 2007
	D	31	Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Arthur Langerman, and Stefan Langerman	USA - Belgium	May 2004
	D	35⁽⁵⁾	Heikki Hyyrö and Timo Poranen	Finland	October 2007

Notes:
(1) The 5T, 5D, 4T, 4D games are respectively called G'₄(A₄), G₄(A₄), G'₃(A₃), G₃(A₃) in the Demaine et al paper. The original 5T game was called MS1 by Pierre Berloquin in Science & Vie.
(2) Millington's grid partially published in Science & Vie in April 1974, where this date of September 1972 is given. This grid was announced as 150 moves... but surprising remark 34 years later by Marc Lapierre, in February 2008, and never done in Science & Vie: his grid has only 149 moves, not 150!
(3) Publication date in Science & Vie. (3-) means that the grid was announced but not published. On the three announced grids of 164 moves, only the grid of Joseph Martin was published.
(4) Grid spread in May 2011, but Chris Rosin says he obtained it in January 2011
(5) These records of 62 and 35 moves will be impossible to beat. Proved in 2008 by Michael Quist with his complete enumeration of the 4T and 4D games.

In the original 5T game, very impressive: the record of 170 moves by Charles-Henri Bruneau done by hand held for 34 years, from 1976 to 2010! Some words on two other "authors" of 170 moves that we can find on the Internet, or in some papers:

Denis Excoffier did not find anything. In 2000 he copied Bruneau's grid, from the 1st move to the 170th move. The paper published in Science & Vie in April 1976 proves the authorship of Bruneau.
J.-B. Bonté found a grid of 170 moves apparently in 1982. This grid, never published in a magazine, is very close to Bruneau's grid.

In a short postscriptum published in December 1982 in Jeux & Stratégie, Michel Brassinne wrote that some readers had perhaps found better grids. But their moves were not numbered, and Brassinne was unable to check them. Unfortunately these grids seem to be lost:

Bruno Moret with 176 moves
Jacques Erb with 179 moves
Sylvain Laurent with 233 moves!

In 2008, I contacted Michel Brassinne: unfortunately, he has not kept any archive of his years spent at Jeux & Stratégie.
Because the name "Erb" is rare in France, I succeeded in finding Jacques Erb: he has not kept his old grids. Some months later, I found in Pierre Berloquin's archives a grid of 209 moves (!) done by Jacques Erb in 1974: because this grid was not of the original 5T game, but a variant, I suspect that his grid of 179 moves was also a variant.
I also succeeded in finding Bruno Moret, still in 2008: he has not kept his old grids either, but remembers that he made several grids of around 170 moves. He started his grids similarly to the other records, but says that there was a crucial choice between the 10th and 30th moves (he can't remember more precisely) leading to good or less good grids.
Unfortunately it seems difficult to locate Sylvain Laurent. But with his astonishing score of 233 moves, his grid was probably wrong, or at a variant, maybe 5T+ or 5T++.