NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Maths Chapter 2 Puzzle Time
Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Terhüchü is a game played in Assam and Nagaland. The board has 16 squares and diagonals are marked as shown in the figure. There are 2 players, and each player has a set of 9 coins placed as shown. The goal is to capture all the opponent’s coins. How is the game played, and how does a player win?
The Terhüchü board and the starting position — a 16-square grid with the diagonals marked, a triangle outside each side and each corner, and nine coins for each player.
Answer
The book gives no calculation here — it gives a board game to play. Here is the whole set of rules, gathered in one place.
The board and the coins
The board is a 4 × 4 arrangement of 16 squares with the diagonals marked, usually scratched on a stone or drawn on mud. There are also triangular corners lying outside the main square.
There are 2 players. Each has a set of 9 coins, and the two sets look different from each other. The coins start in the position shown in the book.
Objective
Capture all of your opponent’s coins. The first player to do so wins.
You also win by blocking your opponent so that they have no legal move left.
If a draw looks unavoidable, the player with more coins on the board wins.
Gameplay
Players take turns. In a turn you move one coin along a marked line, in any direction, to a neighbouring vacant intersection.
If an opponent’s coin sits on a neighbouring intersection and the intersection just beyond it is vacant, you may jump over that coin and land beyond it.
A coin that is jumped over is captured and removed from the board. Multiple captures in one move are allowed, and you may change direction after each jump.
Inside the triangular corners outside the main square, a coin may skip an empty intersection and land on the next one beyond it.
Tip: because captures are made by jumping, never leave one of your coins next to an opponent’s coin when the point beyond it is empty. Keeping your coins in a connected group, so that the landing squares behind them stay occupied, is the safest way to defend.
Why it happens: the win by blocking matters as much as the win by capturing. A player with more coins can lose if all of them get boxed in, so spreading out for mobility has to be balanced against staying protected. Working out which trades of coins are safe is the same kind of careful case-by-case thinking that the chapter’s sign rules demanded.