Congkak is a mancala game of Malay origin played in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia,
Brunei and Southern Thailand.
Congkak, which is often considered a game for girls, has simple rules
that allow the boards to have different numbers of holes. Congkak boards
are often made of teak or mahogany wood are often elaborately carved
into various shapes such as naga or birds.
HOW TO PLAY
The Congkak board has fourteen holes in two sets of seven (some have
ten holes in two sets of five, some have eighteen holes in two sets of
nine), plus an additional bigger store-hole 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. In Indonesia, the holes are called
anak ("child"), while the larger store holes are called
indung ("mother").
A total of 98 pieces are used in the two sets of seven board version.
In Southeast Asia, cowrie shells and tamarind seeds are the most
common.
Seven seeds are placed in each hole except for the players' store. The
objective of the game is to capture more seeds than one's opponent.
The main method of play has rules as described below.
Players take turns moving the seeds except in the first move which is
performed simultaneously, beginning with the hole closest to his/her
own store. After this first simultaneous movement, once the last seed
falls into an empty hole, the players' first turn is over and the
opponent of the player who reached an empty hole first commences his/her
turn after the other player has finished his opening move too. 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 a player is unable to fill a hole with seven seeds that hole is considered
sunog ("burnt"); all excess seeds are returned to the store. The round begins with the player with no
sunog holes taking his/her turn sowing first.
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.
The game ends, when a player has no seeds in his holes at the start
of his turn. The remaining seeds are awarded to his opponent.
The objective of the game is to capture more seeds than one's opponent.