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- How To Win Mancala
- How To Capture In Mancala Game Pigeon Game
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- Mancala Capture Rule
Strategies for Winning at Mancala If you are going first, starting with your third hole is generally considered to be the best opening move. This will land your last piece in your mancala zone, not only scoring you a point but immediately giving you a second move before your turn is over. Play Mancala, the classic board game. Single- and online multiplayer.
Place all captured stones into your Mancala. According to the Mancala Rules, the game is over when a player empties all six cups on his side. The winner is determined by counting stones in the Mancalas. The player with the most stones in their Mancala at the end of the game wins. The Rules Now, there are many ways to play the games in the Mancala family. The rule set we wrote the code for is: you pick from any hole, and drop one stone at a time while circling the board in counterclockwise fashion, drop a stone into your home whenever you pass through it. If you drop your last stone into your home, you get a 'free' turn.
Mancala is a generic name for a family of two-player turn-basedstrategyboard games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some set of the opponent's pieces.
Versions of the game date back to the 7th century and evidence suggests the game existed in Ancient Egypt. It is among the oldest known games to still be widely played today.
Names and variants[edit]
The name is a classification or type of game, rather than any specific game. Some of the most popular mancala games (with regard to distribution area, the numbers of players and tournaments, and publications) are:
- Alemungula, played in Sudan and Ethiopia.
- Ali Guli Mane or Pallanguzhi, played in Southern India.
- It is also called Omanu Guntalu in Telugu, played in rural areas of Telangana, India.
- It is as well called vwela by the nyemba (lucazi) people distributed between Southern Angola, Northern East Namibia and Zambia
- Also called opón ayò among the Yorubas of Nigeria.
- Bao la Kiswahili – played in most of East Africa including Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros, Malawi, as well as some areas of DR Congo and Burundi.[1]
- Gebeta (Tigrigna: ገበጣ) – Ethiopian and Eritrea, especially in Tigrai.
- Hoyito, played in the Dominican Republic
- Kalah – North American variation, the most popular variant in the Western world.
- Lamlameta, played in Ethiopia
- Oware (awalé, awélé, awari) – Ashanti, but played world-wide with close variants played throughout West Africa (e.g., ayo by Yorubas and ishe by Igalas) and in the Caribbean.[2][3][4]
- Toguz korgool or Toguz kumalak – played in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
- Igisoro, played in Rwanda.
A notable subtype of mancala are the Southeast Asian mancalas like the Malaysian congkak, Indonesians congklak or dakon, and Filipino sungka, among others. They differ from other mancala types in that the player's store is included in the placing of the seeds. The most common type has seven holes for each player, in addition to the player store holes. This version has identical rules throughout its range. But there are also numerous variations with the number of holes and rules by region. Sometimes more than one version can be played in a single locality.[5]
Although more than 800 names of traditional mancala games are known, some names denote the same game, while some names are used for more than one game. Almost 200 modern invented versions have also been described.
History[edit]
Evidence of the game was uncovered in Israel in the city of Gedera in an excavated Roman bathhouse where pottery boards and rock cuts were unearthed dating back to between the 2nd and 3rd century AD. Among other early evidence of the game are fragments of a pottery board and several rock cuts found in Aksumite areas in Matara (in Eritrea) and Yeha (in Ethiopia), which are dated by archaeologists to between the 6th and 7th centuries AD; the game may have been mentioned by Giyorgis of Segla in his 14th century Ge'ez text Mysteries of Heaven and Earth, where he refers to a game called qarqis, a term used in Ge'ez to refer to both Gebet'a (mancala) and Sant'araz (modern sent'erazh, Ethiopian chess).[citation needed][6]
The similarity of some aspects of the game to agricultural activity and the absence of a need for specialized equipment present the intriguing possibility that it could date to the beginnings of civilization itself; however, there is little verifiable evidence that the game is older than about 1,300 years. Some purported evidence comes from the Kurna templegraffiti in Egypt, as reported by Parker in 1909 and Murray in his A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess. However, accurate dating of this graffiti seems to be unavailable, and what designs have been found by modern scholars generally resemble games common to the Roman world, rather than anything like mancala.[citation needed]
The games existed in especially eastern Europe. In the Baltic area, it was once very popular ('Bohnenspiel'); in Bosnia, where it is called Ban-Ban and still played today; Serbia; and Greece ('Mandoli', Cyclades). Two mancala tables from the early 18th century are to be found in Weikersheim Castle in southern Germany.[7] In western Europe, it never caught on, but was documented by Oxford University orientalist Thomas Hyde.[8]
The United States has a larger mancala-playing population. A traditional mancala game called Warra was still played in Louisiana in the early 20th century, and a commercial version called Kalah became popular in the 1940s. In Cape Verde, mancala is known as 'ouril'. It is played in the Islands and was brought to the United States by Cape Verdean immigrants. It is played to this day in Cape Verdean communities in New England.
Recent studies of mancala rules have given insight into the distribution of mancala. This distribution has been linked to migration routes, which may go back several hundred years.[9]
Etymology[edit]
The word mancala (منقلة) comes from the Arabic word naqala (نقلة) meaning literally 'to move'.[10][11][12] No one game exists with the name mancala; the name is a classification or type of game. This word is used in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, but is not consistently applied to any one game, and has been used for backgammon in the ancient near east. Mancala is a game that first appeared in Africa, and later, the ancient near east. [13]
General gameplay[edit]
Most mancala games share a common general game play. Players begin by placing a certain number of seeds, prescribed for the particular game, in each of the pits on the game board. A player may count their stones to plot the game. A turn consists of removing all seeds from a pit, 'sowing' the seeds (placing one in each of the following pits in sequence) and capturing based on the state of the board. The object of the game is to plant the most seeds in the bank. This leads to the English phrase 'count and capture' sometimes used to describe the gameplay. Although the details differ greatly, this general sequence applies to all games.
If playing in capture mode, once a player ends their turn in an empty pit on their own side, they capture the opponent's pieces directly across. Once captured, the player gets to put the seeds in their own bank. After capturing, the opponent forfeits a turn.
Equipment[edit]
Equipment is typically a board, constructed of various materials, with a series of holes arranged in rows, usually two or four. The materials include clay and other shapeable materials. Some games are more often played with holes dug in the earth, or carved in stone. The holes may be referred to as 'depressions', 'pits', or 'houses'. Sometimes, large holes on the ends of the board, called stores, are used for holding the pieces.
Playing pieces are seeds, beans, stones, cowry shells, half-marbles or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play.
Board configurations vary among different games but also within variations of a given game; for example Endodoi is played on boards from 2×6 to 2×10. The largest are Tchouba (Mozambique) with a board of 160 (4×40) holes requiring 320 seeds; and En Gehé (Tanzania), played on longer rows with up to 50 pits (a total of 2×50=100) and using 400 seeds. The most minimalistic variants are Nano-Wari and Micro-Wari, created by the Bulgarian ethnologue Assia Popova. The Nano-Wari board has eight seeds in just two pits; Micro-Wari has a total of four seeds in four pits.
With a two-rank board, players usually are considered to control their respective sides of the board, although moves often are made into the opponent's side. With a four-rank board, players control an inner row and an outer row, and a player's seeds will remain in these closest two rows unless the opponent captured them.
Objective[edit]
The objective of most two- and three-row mancala games is to capture more stones than the opponent; in four-row games, one usually seeks to leave the opponent with no legal move or sometimes to capture all counters in their front row.
At the beginning of a player's turn, they select a hole with seeds that will be sown around the board. This selection is often limited to holes on the current player's side of the board, as well as holes with a certain minimum number of seeds.
In a process known as sowing, all the seeds from a hole are dropped one-by-one into subsequent holes in a motion wrapping around the board. Sowing is an apt name for this activity, since not only are many games traditionally played with seeds, but placing seeds one at a time in different holes reflects the physical act of sowing. If the sowing action stops after dropping the last seed, the game is considered a single lap game.
Multiple laps or relay sowing is a frequent feature of mancala games, although not universal. When relay sowing, if the last seed during sowing lands in an occupied hole, all the contents of that hole, including the last sown seed, are immediately re-sown from the hole. The process usually will continue until sowing ends in an empty hole. Another common way to receive 'multiple laps' is when the final seed sown lands in your designated hole.
Many games from the Indian subcontinent use pussa kanawa laps. These are like standard multilaps, but instead of continuing the movement with the contents of the last hole filled, a player continues with the next hole. A pussakanawa lap move will then end when a lap ends just prior to an empty hole.If a player ends his stone with a point move he gets a 'free turn'.
Capturing[edit]
Depending on the last hole sown in a lap, a player may capture stones from the board. The exact requirements for capture, as well as what is done with captured stones, vary considerably among games. Typically, a capture requires sowing to end in a hole with a certain number of stones, ending across the board from stones in specific configurations, or landing in an empty hole adjacent to an opponent's hole that contains one or more pieces.
Another common way of capturing is to capture the stones that reach a certain number of seeds at any moment.
Also, several games include the notion of capturing holes, and thus all seeds sown on a captured hole belong at the end of the game to the player who captured it.
Psychology[edit]
Like other board games, mancala games have led to psychological studies. Retschitzki has studied the cognitive processes used by awalé players.[14] Some of Restchitzki's results on memory and problem solving have recently been simulated by Fernand Gobet with the CHREST computer model.[15]De Voogt has studied the psychology of Bao playing.[16]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Hyde (1694), pp. 226-232
- ^'Oware'. BoardGameGeek.
- ^'Oware – Played all over the world'. www.oware.org.
- ^'African Games of Strategy: A Teaching Manual'. African Studies Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. February 7, 1982 – via Google Books.
- ^de Voogt, Alex (2010). 'Philippine Sungka and Cultural Contact in Southeast Asia'(PDF). Asian Ethnology. 69 (2): 333–342.
- ^Pankhurst, Richard (2005). 'Gäbäṭa'. In Uhlig, Siegbert von (ed.). Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D–Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 598. ISBN3-447-05238-4.
- ^'Afrostyle Magazine'. www.afrostylemag.com. Retrieved 2018-01-17.
- ^Thomas Hyde, De ludis orientalibus [Of Eastern Games, 2 vols.] (Oxford University Press, 1694). https://www.worldcat.org/title/de-ludis-orientalibus-libri-duo-quorum-prior-est-duabus-partibus-viz-1-historia-shahiludii-latine-deinde-2-historia-shahiludii-heb-lat-per-tres-judaeos-liber-posterior-continet-historiam-reliquorum-ludorum-orientis/oclc/174276156?referer=di&ht=editionReference to Hyde's discussion of mancala and other games in Vesna Biki�c and Jasna Vukovi�c, 'Board Games Reconsidered: Mancala in the Balkans', International Journal of the History of Sport 27/5 (Mar. 2010): 798–819. Download citation https://doi.org/10.1080/09523361003625857
- ^Peek, Philip M.; Yankah, Kwesi (March 7, 2004). African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN9781135948733 – via Google Books.
- ^'English words from Arabic'. zompist. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
- ^'Mancala'. Lexbook. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
- ^Cannon, Garland; Kaye, Alan S. (1994). The Arabic contributions to the English language : an historical dictionary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. p. 81. ISBN3-447-03491-2. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
- ^Meyers, Eric M.; Research, American Schools of Oriental (February 7, 1997). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East. Oxford University Press. ISBN9780195112160 – via Google Books.
- ^Retschitzki, J. (1990). Stratégies des Joueurs d'Awélé. Paris: Édition L'Harmattan. ISBN2738406173.
- ^Gobet, F. (2009). 'Using a cognitive architecture for addressing the question of cognitive universals in cross-cultural psychology: The example of awalé'. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 40 (4): 627–648. doi:10.1177/0022022109335186. S2CID145345443.
- ^Voogt, A. J. de (1995). Limits of the Mind: Towards a Characterisation of Bao Mastership. Leiden: CNWS Publications.
Further reading[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mancala. |
- Erickson, Jeff (1998). 'Sowing Games'. Games of No Chance. Cambridge University Press.
- Russ, Larry (2000). The Complete Mancala Games Book. New York: Marlowe.
- Townshend, Philip (1979). 'African Mankala in Anthropological Perspective'. Current Anthropology. 20 (4): 794–796. doi:10.1086/202380. JSTOR2741688. S2CID143060530.
- Deledicq, A. & A. Popova (1977). Wari et solo. Le jeu de calcul Africain. Paris: Cedic.
- Murray, H.J.R. (1952). A History of Board-Games other than Chess. Oxford at the Clarendon Press.
- Townshend, P. (1982). 'Bao (mankala): the Swahili ethic in African idiom'. Paideuma. 28: 75–191. JSTOR41409882.
- Voogt, A.J. de (1997). Mancala Board Games. British Museum Press: London.
If you’re looking to play a game and learn a little about how people in the past entertained themselves, Mancala is the best way to put yourself in their shoes. Or perhaps you played this game in the past and just want to relive your own childhood. In either case, this game will allow you to entertain yourself while gaining special benefits. Mancala is a game with a rich heritage and history. Mancala is a game that has been around for centuries and will probably live on for a few more. Mancala rules have almost 80 variations in this day and age but the essentials remain the same. However, among these, Oware, Bao, Kiswahili, and Wari are the most predominant ones.
Also known as the ‘sow and catch’ game, Mancala depends on your ability to collect as many seeds or stones as you can, and the winner is declared based on this same principle.
Make sure you don’t skip out the vital information.
Table of Contents
- 2 How to Play Mancala Game
- 4 Rules to Play Mancala Board Game
- 7 Online Mancala Game Apps to be Played
- 8 Learning Outcomes of Mancala Game
Origin of Mancala Game
How To Capture In Mancala Game Pigeon Play
The origin of Mancala can be traced back to North African countries like Ethiopia between CE 500 and 700. It is said that Mancala was used as a means of keeping track of agricultural produce, with its ‘sowing’ and ‘capturing’ of seeds. Some sources, however, speculate that Mancala was used in rituals in African temples and shrines. They say the board represents the earth, the holes represent the months of the year while the stones represent stars. And moving along the East to West set up board represents the movements of Gods while the game itself predicts the people’s fate.
The name of the game originates from the Arabic word ‘naqala’, which means ‘to move’. The game is played in the Baltic areas of Europe but didn’t spread through Europe. It traveled with Arab trading to India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China. The game was brought to Europe by the slave trade.
How to Play Mancala Game
Equipment Required to Play Mancala:
To play the ancient and fun game of Mancala you only need two, very simple things; the Mancala board and some marbles.
- The board: the board is 17.5 inches in length and 5.5 inches in width, consisting of twelve small holes along the longer sides, called the non-Mancala cups and two large, elongated holes on each short end, called the Mancala cups. If you do not have a Mancala board, you can always use an egg carton or simply dig small holes in the ground to make a Mancala board in the ground.
- The marbles: a total of forty-eight marbles are needed to play the game. Four marbles are placed in each small hole. Any small objects like stones or sunflower seeds can be used in place of the marbles.
How to Setup a Mancala Game
To set up your Mancala game you will need to have the above equipment. Once you’ve bought the given equipment, it will be very easy for you to get started.
- To set up the game you need to find a table or comfortable cushions to sit on the floor. Then you need to layout the board.
- Both players need to sit on either of the two sides of the board.
- Once everyone is settled in, four stones should be placed in each hole.
Now the game can begin by choosing who goes first and starting the collection of stones in one’s own Mancala cup.
How to Make a DIY Mancala Board
If you think going out to buy a Mancala board is too much work, and ordering online will just take too much time, don’t worry! You can easily make a Mancala board at home. No need to go through the hassle of running to the market or the wait for online shopping. To make your very own Mancala board, you’ll need to follow the following steps.

- Get an empty twelve egg container or an ice cube tray. The holes in these are perfect to use as your Non-Mancala cups.
- Place two larger cups on the longer sides of these to create the Mancala cups.
- Now open up a bag of peanuts or sunflower seeds and use these are your marbles or stones.
That’s it! Your DIY Mancala game is ready to be played!
The Objective of Mancala Game
The main objective of the game is to gather as many stones as possible in your Mancala cups since whoever has the most stones here at the end of the game is declared the winner. You can do this by picking the Non-Mancala cups in such an order that most stones end up in your Mancala cup. The details of this strategy are explained further in the article.
Rules to Play Mancala Board Game
The game is fairly easy to understand and very straightforward. The following rules and regulations will make it clear to you how you’re supposed to play the game.
- The board of Mancala is set up in such a way that each long side is placed towards the players, with the players facing each other.
- Four marbles are placed in each small hole while the larger hole is left empty.
- Choose which players get to go first, using rock paper scissors, dibs or whatever way you prefer.
- The chosen player should then pick up the four stones from any one of his non-Mancala cups and drop them into the following cups using an anti-clockwise movement. The player must not drop any stones into the Mancala cup of the opponent. He can, however, drop them into his own Mancala cup and the non-Mancala cups of both the players.
- Step 4 should be repeated over and over by each player in turns until one long side of the board is completely empty.
- Then the stones in each Mancala cup are counted and the player with the most stones in his or her Mancala cup wins that round.
Along with these basic rules, there are also some special rules that make the gameplay interesting.
Special Rules
- When the last stone in your hand lands in your Mancala cup, you get to take another turn.
- When the last stone in your hand lands in one of your own Non-Mancala cups and that cup has been empty you get to keep all of the stones in your opponent’s cup on the opposite side. Put those captured stones, as well as the last stone that you just played on your side, into your Mancala cup.
Strategies to Win Mancala
How To Win Mancala Iphone
Although Mancala may seem like a game of luck, there are certain ways that luck can be shaped in your favor. The following strategies, with make use of the special rules mentioned above, can help you win the game and give you an opportunity to show your friends just how smart you are!
- Flight: if you are afraid that your opponent will try to capture your stones, just empty out the cup you think they are going to try and empty before they do so.
- Threat: you can use the special rules and create a threat for your opponent, this will scare them and they will get too busy trying to elude your threat. They won’t have the ability to threaten you!
- Hoarding: the act of refusing to play from one specific cup, this allows stones to accumulate there and when the game ends, they can all move to the Mancala cup. However, if this cup is captured, you could lose a major chunk of your stones! So beware while using this strategy.
- Starving: in this strategy you can gather up most of your stones on your side of the Mancala and ‘starve’ the opponent, forcing his side to empty out and hence winning the game when the stones are counted. This strategy should also be used carefully as the risk of capture is ever-present.
- Avoiding excess Buildup: you should keep track of the number of stones in each cup to make sure you only have enough to cover your side and your Mancala cup. This way you can avoid putting stones in your opponent’s cups.
Variations of a Mancala Game
Although there is one version of Mancala played in the United States today, there are multiple variations of this game that are played worldwide. Including the following:
- Congkak: This version of the game is played in Southeast Asian countries, predominantly in Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The board is usually decorated with more colors than the American version. This version of the game has seven cups on each player’s side with seven stones in each cup. The rules are mostly the same except, each player keeps taking turns until their stone falls into an empty cup of the opponent, only then can their opponent start taking turns.
- Omweso: This is the version that is played in Uganda. The board for Omweso has thirty-two cups or holes instead of the standard twelve, arranged in rows of eight. There are no large, elongated holes. Each player resides over sixteen cups. Four stones are placed in one of the eight holes closest to the players while both the middle rows are left empty. The player then moves their stones. The rest of the rules remain fairly similar.
- Bao: This is a traditional Mancala board game played in most of East Africa including Kenya and Tanzania. The board in Bao, like Omweso, has thirty-two cups or holes arranged in rows of eight. There are no large, elongated holes. Some pits that play a special role in the game have specific names. The game starts with each player putting one of the stones in their hands into one of the holes.
- Toguz Kumalak: This version is played in Central Asia. The board has nine elongated cups on each side. Each cup contains nine stones. Most rules are similar except that when you pick up stones from a cup, the first stone is dropped in the same cup instead of the next one. However, if the cup you’re picking up stones from has only one left then that stone goes to the next cup. And so on. This version also has some special cups like the kazan and tuzdik.
- Pallanguzhi: This Tamil version is played in South India which is played on a board with 2 rows of 7 holes each. A typical game involves using 146 seeds. 12 counters are placed in each cup except the middle of each row into which only 2 counters are placed. The rules for a standard Mancala game also apply to this version.
Online Mancala Game Apps to be Played
Ancient Mancala Game
How To Win Mancala
The app can be enjoyed anywhere while competing with people around the world. You can pick whether you want to play online or offline and then also if you want to play with random people or your friends. The app also allows you to learn how to play the game, so it’s ideal if you haven’t played the game before. To play each round, however, you need at least fifty chips which means if you run out of chips, you won’t be able to play any longer.
- Leaderboard
- Exclusive how-to-play section with three subsections namely, Basics; Rules and Strategy. Each subsection is taught by showing you a game that is played by the computer, so you can truly understand everything instead of just reading a list.
- It allows you to make in-app purchases for chips and different kinds of boards and stones, which you need to play a new game.
The offline version allows you to choose whether you want to play against the computer or with a friend, so you and your friend can play while sitting together instead of online.
Mancala Club
In this app, you’re given the option to either play online with players from around the world or play offline if you don’t have an internet connection. You can also choose the level of difficulty from three categories, easy; medium or hard. However, some users complain about a massive number of advertisements.
How To Capture In Mancala Game Pigeon Game
- How to play section that shows you how a game is played from start to finish
- Mini-games to help you practice how to apply strategies.
- It allows you to play offline but only with the computer.
- Online games can be played with friends and random people.
- Three levels of difficulty to choose from when playing a game, allowing you to learn from easier games.
Learning Outcomes of Mancala Game
How To Capture In Mancala Game Pigeon Free
Games tend to prove useful in more than one way. It can be used in schools as well as at home to teach your children many skills.
Mancala Capture Rule
- If young students are told to pick and distribute the stones with one hand, it can help improve their motor skills.
- With the much needed quick addition and subtraction, playing Mancala can prove to be a good math exercise for students and young children.
- Mancala also gives room to develop deep critical thinking skills. These can aid children and adults alike in future decision making.