Oware

Oware game, Ivory Coast board.

Oware Akan – MHNT

Oware (also known by other terms: wari, warri, ware, ourri, owari, awele, walle, awalé, aware, awaoley, wouri...) is an abstract game, played between two people, originally from West Africa.

Description

It belongs to the mancalas family of games, and is one of the oldest known board games.

Requires an oware board, which is a rectangular board that has two dug courses of six holes. At the ends of the table there are two other cavities, slightly larger, which are deposits for the captured pieces.

The pieces used are seeds or pebbles (the size of a chickpea or a little more). It takes 48.

The mancalas games have the following characteristics:

• There are no chips of one or another player, but one own field and one on the contrary.
• Each field is formed by a row of six boxes.
• Seeds (fichas) are sown and collected.
• The sowing is done by taking all the seeds and leaving them from one in the following boxes.

Rules

Initial layout

	f	e	d	c	b	a
	A	B	C	D	E	F

Players take their places along the long sides of the board. Each player owns the entire row on his side (6 holes) and the deposit that is to his right.

To start the game, the six holes of each field are loaded with seeds: 4 seeds per hole. The 24 seeds are thus located.

P.A.Perron.

Movements

The starting player chooses any hole on his course and holds up all the seeds deposited there. He then carries them counterclockwise, planting them one by one in each hole he finds along the way. The opponent then plays in a similar way. Players continue to move like this alternately.

It can happen that a heavily loaded hole contains 12 or more seeds, so that its sowing will take more than one full circle of the board. The player who starts from such a hole must skip it, leaving it empty. That is to say, that the hole from which it starts must remain empty after sowing.

Captures

When the last seed sown falls into a hole in the opponent's field, completing a load of 2 or 3 seeds there, the player who made the move captures these 2 or 3 seeds and keeps them in his Deposit. If the holes before the newly captured one contain 2 or 3 seeds, all these seeds are also captured. This allows you to capture a string of several holes, which is interrupted by a hole that has more than 3 seeds or less than 2. But in any case, keep in mind that you only capture on the opponent's course.

Example:

Starting position in the image on the left. It is played from hole “E” sowing 6 seeds...

	f	e	d	c	b	a
	A	B	C	D	E	F

Position after movement in the image on the right. As the last seed sown fell in "e", which is an opponent's hole and 3 seeds were completed there, the player who sowed captures those 3 seeds and also the 2 of "d" and the 3 of "c". In total, capture 8 seeds.

The board looks like the figure below...

	f	e	d	c	b	a
	A	B	C	D	E	F

	f	e	d	c	b	a
	A	B	C	D	E	F

Special situations

• A player cannot completely empty the adversary field. You must try to play from another hole. But it can happen that from any hole that comes out, always captures the entire adversary field: in such case, the move is not made and the game ends here. Each player will add to your deposit the seeds of your field.

• When by a player's play, it stays with its completely empty field, the opponent is obliged, if possible, to sow something in them. If not possible, the game is finished and the player with seeds still in their own holes will add them to their deposit.

• When there are only a few seeds left that can circulate without the possibility of catching for either of the two players, the game ends and each contestant adds to your deposit the seeds of your field.

Winner

As just described, the game ends when no more captures can be made or when any player runs out of moves. The contents of the tanks are then counted and the one with the most wins.

The game can also be ended if one of the players exceeds the amount of 24 seeds in his deposit.

Variants

Other similar games from the moncadas family are:

• The awari, variant of the Antilles. The only difference is that when you take the seeds on the contrary, you can collect both the previous ones and the later ones.
• The bantumi, in which there is a box of the house on the right of the board, in which the seeds are left. It is repeated if the last seed is deposited in the house. In addition, if the last seed is deposited in a box of the field previously empty, the seeds of the box of the opposite will be taken in the case of containing seeds. The Nokia mobile phone company has included in the firmware of some models of your mobile this game.
• Mand