Mancala: how to play

The board has six pits per player and a store at each end. Your pits are along the bottom and your store is on the right.

On your turn, pick one of your pits. Take all its seeds and sow them one by one into the following pits, anticlockwise.

Kalah

• Sow into your own store, but skip your opponent’s.
• If your last seed lands in your store, you go again.
• If your last seed lands in an empty pit on your side, capture it and all the seeds opposite.
• When one side is empty, the other player takes the seeds left on their side. Most seeds in store wins.
• Options: 3 to 6 seeds per pit.

Oware

• No stores while sowing; if you go round a full lap you skip the pit you started from.
• If your last seed makes 2 or 3 in an opponent’s pit, capture it, and the pits before it that also have 2 or 3.
• You must leave your opponent seeds to play if you can.
• First to capture more than half the seeds wins.