And Now, Master Mind

"I'm a Master Mind junkie," says Molly Rambler, a teacher from Englewood, N.J. "I can't go to bed at night until I play a couple of games." The game creating such helpless addiction is an import from Britain. Since Master Mind first came on the market two years ago, 5 million sets have been bought in 60 different countries. Since last spring, 85,000 Master Mind sets have been sold in the U.S. at prices from $2.50 to $20. Thousands of players are addicted.

The game is the invention of Amateur Mathematician Mordechai Meirovich, a postal employee in Israel, who first displayed it at the 1971 Nuernberg Toy Fair. There it was spotted by scouts from Invicta Plastics, a games manufacturer in Leicester. Invicta immediately recognized the potential of Meirovich's simple game and went to work producing, packaging and selling four different models.

In the basic model of Master Mind, one player, known as the "codemaker," picks four pegs from a choice of six colors and places them in any order he chooses under a shield on one side of a board. The object of his opponent, the "codebreaker," is to place four pegs in holes on his side of the board, attempting to duplicate the color and order of the hidden pegs in a maximum of ten tries. After the codebreaker has set up his four pegs, the codemaker gives clues by placing in four small holes either black markers (for correct color, correct position), white markers (correct color, wrong position) or no markers (wrong color). The codebreaker next arranges another row of pegs and is given more clues, repeating the process until he has deduced the hidden "code." Then the players switch positions; the winner is the one who figures out the code in the least number of tries.

As their expertise increases, players can try out more complicated variations of the game. Explains Jose Ballester, assistant games buyer for the Brentano's bookstore chain: "Chance plays an important element in the first three tries. After that it's logic." In fact, manufacturers of educational materials such as Cuisenaire in New Rochelle, N.Y., and J.L. Hammett based in Braintree, Mass, are already promoting the game to teach logic in the classroom.

Why is Master Mind so popular? Despite the complexity of some of the advanced versions of the game, says Gene Lewallen, a student at Georgia State University in Atlanta, "it's easy to understand the rules, and it's not long and drawn out like chess [average time to crack the code: 15 minutes]." Lis Nygaard, a television producer from Toronto, plays Master Mind on planes. She became a fan because, "You can break the ice with people. You get to know a lot about them: how they think, even what colors they like."

What lies ahead for the U.S. may well be seen in Britain, where Master Mind has reached epidemic proportions. There Games and Puzzles magazine regularly carries letters arguing the strategy of the game. Master Mind has been tested on 600 students and teachers in British schools, and the results have been published in an article written to help inventors of other games. A nationwide elimination contest with hundreds of entrants is now under way. The 50 finalists will face-off in London next month at the Magic Circle Theater.

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