Oware

(This page is still under construction)

This oware variant is, just like the Mancalah variant, not typical for a specific region, it just illustrates the essence of many Mancalah/oware games.

Start of the game:

The board consists of 2 rows of 6 cups. Between the two rows there are 2 extra cups, called the kalahs, at the edges of the board, one for each player. At the start of the game each cup except the 2 kalahs receives 4 beans.

(At some boards, the kalahs do not exists, and beans are stored outside the board).

Thus the initial situation should look like:

	4	4	4	4	4	4
0							0
	4	4	4	4	4	4

Lets say the top row belongs to player A, the bottom row to player B. Assume that player B starts. Players should agree on who starts. For fairness, consider playing 2 games, with both being first player in one of the games.

How to play:

1. A player takes the entire content of one of the cups in his own row. He never takes his own kalah.
2. He distributes them by adding one of the beans from his hand to all cups, going round counter clockwise. He skips his own kalah should he continue after his own row, and he continues distributing along his opponents row. Should he still have beans in his hand left, he skips his opponents kalah, and continues at his own row.
3. Should he end somewhere at the opponents side of the board, and this last cup has 2 or 3 beans, than this beans in this cup are captured. The player capturing the beans adds them to his own kalah.
4. If rule 3 has been applied, the last cup but one is regarded as the last one and rule 3 is apllied to this new last cup.
5. Rule 4 is applied as long as the 'last cup' contains 2 or 3 beans and is at the opponents side of the board.

The end:

The game ends when a player has no beans to play when his turn comes up. The other player takes the rest of the beans from his side of the board and adds them to his kalah.

The score:

Every player counts the beans in his own kalah. The player with the most beans in his kalah wins the game.

Variations:

Instead of capturing the 2 or 3 beans in the last cup, the beans in the opposite cup are captured.

Example:

Player A:

	4	4	4	4	4	4
0							0
	4	4	4	4	4	4

Player B

Player A starts by moving his first cup:

	0	4	4	4	4	4
0							0
	5	5	5	5	4	4

Player B plays safe:

	0	4	4	4	4	4
0							0
	0	6	6	6	6	5

Player A moves his second cup:

	1	0	4	4	4	4
0							0
	1	7	7	6	6	5

Player B moves a single bean:

	1	0	4	4	4	4
0							0
	0	8	7	6	6	5

Player A empties his 3rd cup:

	2	1	0	4	4	4
0							0
	1	9	7	6	6	5

Again player B just moves 1 bean:

	2	1	0	4	4	4
0							0
	0	10	7	6	6	5

This time player A also moves a single bean:

	3	0	0	4	4	4
0							0
	0	10	7	6	6	5

This forces player B to pass some of his beans to player A:

	3	1	1	5	5	5
0							0
	0	10	7	6	6	0

Player A now makes a small mistake and moves his leftmost cup:

	4	2	2	6	6	0
0							0
	0	10	7	6	6	0

This allows player B to capture 6 beans. Player B takes his second rightmost cup. For the benefit of instruction, we show this in phases:

	4	3	3	7	7	1
0							0
	0	10	7	6	0	1

Because the last cup now has 3 beans, player B takes these 3 beans and adds them to his kalah:

	4	0	3	7	7	1
0							3
	0	10	7	6	0	1

Because the previous cup also holds 3 beans, this cup is also captured:

	4	0	0	7	7	1
0							6
	0	10	7	6	0	1