Congkak

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For film, see also Congkak.
Congkak
Ranks Two
Sowing Multilap
Region South East Asia

Congkak (IPA: [tʃoŋkaʔ]) is a mancala game played in the island of Borneo, Singapore, and Peninsular Malaysia. Minor variants are known as Tchonka, Naranj, Dakon or Sungka and are played in Indonesia (mostly Java), Sri Lanka, the Maldives, southern Thailand, the Philippines and the Marianas. In Indonesia, it is called "Congklak" meaning cowrie shells, which are often used as pieces.

Congkak is believed to originate from the word ‘congak’ which in old Malay Language means count. It is believed that the game originated in Malacca Kingdom where it became very popular and spread to the South East Asia region. This spread was due to the many travelers who visited the kingdom because it was a trading city. In the early days it is thought that this game was for the king and family and the palace residents, however later it spread to the general population of the kingdom. As the congkak board is shaped like a boat it is believed that it is based on the legend of a fisherman unable to go to the sea during rainy season who lost his income during this time. To prevent boredom he created this game which is similar to his boat.

Contents

[edit] Rules

[edit] Equipment

The Congkak board has fourteen holes in two sets of seven, plus an additional store for each player. Each player controls the seven holes on their side of the board, and their score is the number of seeds in their left-hand store.

The pieces are 98 undifferentiated seeds.

[edit] Setup

Seven seeds are placed in each hole except the stores, which remain empty.

[edit] Objective

The objective of the game is to capture more seeds than one's opponent.

[edit] Sowing

Players take turns moving the seeds except in the first move which is performed simultaneously. On a turn, a player chooses one of the seven holes under their control. The player removes all seeds from this hole, and distributes them in each hole clockwise from this hole, in a process called sowing. Sowing skips an opponent's store, but does not skip a player's own store.

If the last seed falls into an occupied hole, all the seeds are removed from that hole, and are sown starting from that hole. The process continues until the last seed falls into a player's store, or an empty hole.

If the last seed sown falls into a player's own store, they immediately earn another turn, which can begin at any of the seven holes under their control.

[edit] Capturing

If the last seed sown falls into an empty hole on the current player's side, then the player captures all the seeds in the hole directly across from this one, on the opponent's side. If the opposing hole is empty, no seeds are captured.

[edit] External links