Mancala

How to play Mancala on this page

You play the bottom row of six pits, and your store is the big pit on the right. Click or tap one of your pits that has seeds in it: the seeds are lifted and sown one by one, counter-clockwise, into the following pits and your store. The game shows each seed as it falls, so you can follow where your move ends. You can also press the keys 1 to 6 to play your pits from left to right.

• Play the computer at Easy, Medium or Hard, or choose Friend to play two players on one screen, taking turns with the top and bottom rows.
• Capture or Avalanche. Capture is the classic game, known in the United States as Kalah. Avalanche is the variant many people know from the iMessage version: when your last seed lands on a pit that already has seeds, you pick them all up and keep going.
• 3 to 6 seeds per pit. Four is the standard. Three makes a shorter game; five and six give longer, more tactical ones.
• Hint and Undo. Hint highlights the move the Hard computer would play for you. Undo takes back your last move, the computer's reply included.

Your wins and losses against each level are kept in this browser, separately for Capture and Avalanche.

Mancala rules in brief

1. Each player has six pits and a store. Every pit starts with four seeds; the stores start empty.
2. On your turn, take all the seeds from one of your pits and sow them one at a time counter-clockwise: into the next pits, your own store, and on round the opponent's pits. Skip the opponent's store.
3. If your last seed lands in your own store, you take another turn.
4. Capture rules: if your last seed lands in an empty pit on your side and the opposite pit has seeds, you capture both into your store.
5. The game ends when one side has no seeds left. Each player adds the seeds still on their side to their store, and the bigger store wins.

The full Mancala rules page walks through each rule with examples, including how Avalanche works. Ready to win more often? The Mancala strategy page covers the best first moves and how to plan captures.

What is Mancala?

Mancala is not one game but a large family of board games played by sowing seeds, stones or shells around rows of pits. The word comes from the Arabic naqala, "to move". Versions such as Oware, Bao and Congkak are played across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and some of them are very old: boards cut into stone and pottery have been found in a Roman bathhouse in Gedera, in present-day Israel, dated to the 2nd or 3rd century AD.

The game most people in the United States and Europe call Mancala is Kalah: two rows of six pits, a store at each end, four seeds a pit, extra turns and captures. It is the version played here. Because it is short, easy to explain and still full of choices, it is a common first strategy game for children and a quick, competitive one for adults.

Levels: how strong is the computer?

Easy often plays a random pit and otherwise takes whatever gains the most seeds right now, so it misses traps and leaves captures open. Medium looks three moves ahead, counting extra turns. Hard searches as deep as it can in about half a second, usually more than a dozen moves, and is a tough opponent. In our own tests Medium beat Easy in 39 of 40 games under Capture rules, and Hard beat Medium in every game whichever side started.