Oware
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| Oware |
| Ranks: Two |
| Sowing: Single lap |
| Region: Ghana, Benin and neighbouring countries |
Oware is an abstract strategy game and the mancala game most widely considered suitable for serious adult competition. Among its many names are Ayoayo, Awale, Our i, Warri, Adji-Boto, Wari, Awari, and Awele, used in different languages in West Africa and the Caribbean. Oware is the national game of Ghana, and the particular name "Oware" is that given by the Akan speaking people there.
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Rules
These are the rules for the abapa variation, considered to be the most appropriate for serious, adult play.
Equipment
The Oware board has six pits in front of each player, and one pit at each end which stores captured stones. Each player controls the six pits on their side of the board, and their score is the number of seeds in their right-hand house.
The only pieces are 48 undifferentiated seeds. In the Caribbean, these are typically nickernuts, which are smooth and shiny seeds of sprawling coastal shrubs.
Setup
At the beginning of the game four seeds are placed in each pit except the end pits. Typically, the winner of the previous game starts the next game.
Object
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 are an even number of seeds, it is possible for the game to end in a draw, where each player has captured 24.
Sowing
Example turn:
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The lower player prepares to sow from E.
After sowing, c, d, and e are captured.
Players take turns moving the seeds. On a turn, a player chooses one of the six pits under their control. The player removes all seeds from this pit, and distributes them in each pit counter-clockwise from this house, in a process called sowing. Seeds are not distributed into the end scoring pits, nor into the pit drawn from. The diagram shows the result of sowing from house E.
Capturing
After a turn, if the last seed was placed into an opponent's pit that brought its total to two or three, all the seeds in that house are captured and placed in the player's scoring pit. If the previous to last seed also brought an opponent's pit to two or three, these are captured as well, and so on. However, if a move would capture all an opponent's seeds, the seeds are not captured, and are instead left on the board, since this would prevent the opponent from continuing the game. In the above diagram, the lower player would capture all the seeds in c, d, and e.
Let the opponent play
The exception disallowing capture of 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 pits 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 their own territory, ending the game.
Endless Cycles
If an endless cycle of moves occurs, all the remaining seeds are split evenly between the players. If the number is odd, the odd seed is given to the player who owned more seeds at the beginning of the cycle.
Variations
Grand Slam Oware
This variation allows a move to capture all of an opponent's seeds, typically called a Grand Slam. After such a move, the opponent no longer has any seeds, so the current player also captures all the seeds in their own territory, ending the game.
History and Society
A Time magazine article from June 14, 1963 demonstrates the age of mancala thus:
- "Carved on a vast block of rock in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo are two facing ranks of six shallow pits with larger hollows scooped out at each end. The same design is carved on columns of the temple at Karnak in Egypt, and it appears in the early tomb paintings in the valley of the Nile. It is carved in the Theseum in Athens, and in rock ledges along caravan routes of the ancient world. Today the same pits and hollows are to be found all over Asia and Africa, scratched in the bare earth, carved in rare woods or ivory inlaid with gold."
Although not all of these examples are still credited today, the mancala family of games has been in existence for at least 1000 years. Oware is perhaps the most widespread game in that family.
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 1 trillion 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.
External links
- Official rules from the Oware Society. (http://www.oware.org/abapa.asp)
- Rules from the University of Alberta computer Awari group. (http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~awari/rules.html)
- A page in Catalan that has game records from an Antiguan tournament. (http://www.manqala.org/wiki/index.php/InternationalWarriFestival2002)
- An online text with strategy by David Chamberlain. (http://www.hut.fi/~vkorkiak/mancala/doc/html_rules/chapter1.html)
- PDF describing the solution of Awari. (http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/icga/journal/contents/awari.pdf)
- Freeware implementation of Awari with computer opponent. (http://www.ihsan.biz/)
- Oware to play online against live opponents (at Kurnik Online Games) (http://www.kurnik.org/intl/en/mancala/)es:Awari eo:Avario fr:Awélé