authored by Sam Slater ... sslater2@cca.edu
The most popular board game
The common game played by all adults is OURI (Oware) in Ghana. Oware is an abstract strategy game and is the variant of mancala most widely considered suitable for serious adult competition. English is Awari but one of the earliest Western scholars to study the game, R.S. Rattray, used the name Wari.
Following are the rules for the abapa variation, considered to be the most appropriate for serious, adult play.
f | e | d | c | b | a |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A | B | C | D | E | F |
The game requires an oware board and 48 seeds. A typical oware board has two straight rows of six pits, called "houses", and optionally one large "score" house at either end. Each player controls the six houses on their side of the board, and the score house on their end. The game begins with four seeds in each of the twelve smaller houses.
Boards may be elaborately carved or simple and functional; they may include a pedestal, or be hinged to fold lengthwise or crosswise and latch for portability and storage with the seeds inside. While most commonly located at either end, scoring houses may be placed elsewhere, and the rows need not be straight. When a board has a hinged cover like a diptych, the scoring houses may be carved into the two halves of the cover, and so be in front of the players during play. The ground may also be used as a board; players simply scoop two rows of pits out of the earth.
In the Caribbean, the seeds are typically nickernuts, which are smooth and shiny. Beads and pebbles are also sometimes used. In the West, some cheaper sets use oval shaped marbles. Some tourist sets use cowrie shells.
The object of the game is to capture more seeds than one's opponent. Since the game has only 48 seeds, capturing 25 is sufficient to accomplish this. Since there is an even number of seeds, it is possible for the game to end in a draw, where each player has captured 24.
Example turn:
A | B | C | D | E | F |
---|
The lower player prepares to sow from E.
f | e | d | c | b | a |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
After sowing, c, d, and e are captured but nota.
Players take turns moving the seeds. On a turn, a player chooses one of the six houses under their control. The player removes all seeds from that house, and distributes them, dropping one in each house counter-clockwise from this house, in a process called sowing. Seeds are not distributed into the end scoring houses, nor into the house drawn from. That is, the starting house is left empty; if it contained 12 seeds, it is skipped, and the twelfth seed is placed in the next house. The diagram shows the result of sowing from house E.
Knowing the number of seeds in each house is, of course, important to game play. When there are many seeds in a house, sometimes enough to make a full lap of the board or more, they cannot easily be counted by eye, and their number is often guarded by the player who controls that house. This may be done by repeatedly moving the seeds in the house. A player may count the seeds when contemplating a move; in such cases the last few are usually counted in the hand to avoid revealing their number.
After a turn, if the last seed placed into an opponent's house brought the house's total to exactly two or three, all the seeds in that house are captured and placed in the player's scoring house (or set aside if the board has no scoring houses). If the previous-to-last seed also brought an opponent's house to two or three, these are captured as well, and so on. Therefore, seeds may be captured from every consecutive house on the opponent's side whose seed total was brought to two or three on the player's current turn. However, if a move would capture all an opponent's seeds, the capture is forfeited, and the seeds are instead left on the board, since this would prevent the opponent from continuing the game. In the diagram to the right, the lower player would capture all the seeds in houses c, d, and e but not a, since it is not contiguous to the other captured houses.
The proscription against capturing all an opponent's seeds is related to a more general idea, that one ought to make a move that allows the opponent to continue playing. If an opponent's houses are all empty, the current player must make a move that gives the opponent seeds. If no such move is possible, the current player captures all seeds in his/her own territory, ending the game.
The game is over when one player has captured 25 or more seeds, or each player has taken 24 seeds (draw). If both players agree that the game has been reduced to an endless cycle, each player captures the seeds on their side of the board.
A grand slam is when you capture all of your opponent's seeds in one turn. There are variations to the rule that applies, which may be one of the following:
Various other rules also exist.
Oware is perhaps the most widespread game in the mancala family of games.
Reflecting traditional African values, players of oware encourage participation by onlookers, making it perhaps the most social two-player abstract. Games may provide a focus for entertainment and meeting others. The game, or variations of it, also had an important role in teaching arithmetic to African children.
In May 2002, two scientists from the Free University in Amsterdam, Netherlands reported that they had used computers to solve the game of "Awari" using a brute force approach. Over 889 billion positions were considered, with their solution demonstrating that perfect play leads to a draw. However, some oware players have noted that this experiment was not done using the abape ruleset used in international competition, but rather with the Grand Slam variation.
Djurtus RECORD
LANDMARK VICTORY AGAINST
GOLIATH KENY
2010 qualifying in the very first stage
Sports in Guinea Bissau.
The most popular sport
in the country is far and
away football. A domestic
league of
The national team, although
not very good, is extremely
well supported and it is not
uncommon for attendances at international matches
to be in excess of 50,000.
They are enjoying a run of
form at the moment in the
qualification round of the
African Cup of Nations,
having recorded their first
victory in two years in October against Kenya (who
are actually quite good).
Guinea-Bissau have never
reached the finals and are
widely considered one of
the continent’s minnows.
But a new Portugal-born
coach and an influx of
young expatriate and foreign-born players saw this
nation, which has a population of less than two million, start off qualifying
in style earlier this month
with an unlikely 1-0 victory
over Kenya.
Their previous ranking of
188th - 72 places behind
Kenya at the time - was
partially a reflection of the
national team not having played an international match in almost three
years. But the result was
still significant for the Djurtus, who had not won an
official match since 1996
and were eliminated from
- losing 1-0 to Sierra Leone over two
legs. But a breakaway goal following
a defensive giveaway just 14 minutes
from time allowed the hosts to knock
off a side that included Inter Milan’s
highly rated McDonald Mariga. It
was a result that cost Kenya’s Twahir
Muhiddin his job as coach, while his
opposite number Norton De Matos
will surely have his Guinea-Bissau
players enjoying their time at the top
of Group J, an honour they share with
Uganda. The underdogs will next test
their resolve in the second weekend
in October away to wounded Angola,
who sit bottom of the table after a 3-0
loss to Uganda.
“It was an important win,” said De
Matos, who lives in neighbouring
Senegal. “A win that gives us better
conditions to build for the future that
will make people believe that we have
good players, players who, within the
context of Africa, can really play an
important part in each match they
play. However, let’s not get too carried
away with it. We still have one month
to prepare for our match against Angola and, again, we’ll fight for the best
result with the same confidence and
enthusiasm.”
Guinea also face a tall task in the next
round of qualifying as they host Nigeria in Conakry. However, the Syli Nationale have some history on their side,
having never lost to the Super Eagles
at home.
OLYMPIC HERO TRAINS
FOR LONDON 2012
Our flag bearer from the
Beijing Olympic Games, Augusto Midana, is now back in
the saddle and competing in
preparation for a medal show
in London 2012. Hopefully
her efforts in freestyle wrestling will give out country its
first olympic medal in any
sport. And Augusto understands the weight of national
expectation on her shoulders
as a motivating factor in her
training. “I like the pressure”
she says. Well, Augusto,
we’re all behind you.
Augusto is proud to be of a
rare lineage of Giunea Bissau
Olympic athletes. We have
contributed athletes to every
Olympic event since Atlanta
1996.