Last modified: Wed Feb 28 11:10:40 MST 2001

Mancala

Mancala is the generic name for a group of games from ancient Africa and Asia. There are many variations, but here is one of the most popular.

The board, in starting position, looks like:
Mancala oo
oo 		oo
oo 		oo
oo 		oo
oo 		oo
oo 		oo
oo 		Mancala
oo
oo 		oo
oo 		oo
oo 		oo
oo 		oo
oo 		oo
oo

Each player's scoring cup, or Mancala, is on their right.

Object

Each player attempts to collect as many stones as possible before one of the players clears their side of the board of stones.

Play

Players alternate turns. On each turn, a player picks up all stones from one cup, and places one stone in each cup going counter-clockwise from the chosen cup, including his mancala, but excluding his opponents mancala. If the last stone is placed in the player's mancala, he goes again. If the last stone is placed in an empty cup on the player's own side, he may take all the stones from the opponent's cup directly opposite of the previously empty cup in which he placed his last stone, placing them in his own mancala.

Termination Condition

Play ends when one player has no more stones on his side. The remaining player then takes all stones on his side of the board and places them in his mancala. The winner is the player with the most stones in his mancala.
Here is another variation:

Mancala is played with seven pits -- six playing pits plus one score pit, the Kalaha -- per player. At the beginning of the game, each of the (12) playing pits contains 3 seeds (or beads or stones or balls or whatever). To play, the player chooses one pit from which to "sow" the seeds. Each seed in the pit is then placed, one at a time, into the successive pits, moving counter-clockwise around the board. Seeds placed in a Kalaha are points for that player. Seeds are not sown in the opponent's Kalaha. If the last seed in a play is placed in the player's own Kalaha, they get another turn. If the last seed is placed in an empty pit on their own side of the board, then they Capture the seeds in the opposite (their opponent's) pit. All captured seeds, as well as the capturing piece, are placed in the player's Kalaha. The game ends when all of the pits on one side of the board are empty. The player with seeds remaining gets to put them into their Kalaha. The winner is the player with the most seeds.