Marfitalu: There are tons of Mancala versions everywhere.

Marfitalu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancala

Marfitalu: How would you play this game? I like it very much this way, my BKR of 1846 says that :).

Marfitalu: My question would be: How do you play this game? What are ''your rules''? (Since there is no ''THE rules'')

Marfitalu:
This is a known variation.
Here is one example   Its">http://www.aflcio.org/unionshop/games/game_mancala.cfm
Its also the basic rules for the home version I have.
There are many many many variations of this game but I think this is the easiest and was a good one to start with here. Fencer can always add the other variations later on.

Infidel: Is there an official name for this variation?

Fencer: How about ending the game when one player gets 25 (or more) points?

I didn't knew that varitation before.
How about rules used on Mind Oplymics in Czech?

Marfitalu: Well, what we play here looks like 'Bantumi', but it isn't. In Bantumi, if seed your beads, and the last one drops in an empty hole on your side of the board, you not only get the beads from the corresponding hole on your opponents side (as happens here in Mancala), but also that last bead you dropped.

A significant difference. (And I already made mistakes assuming I got an extra bead)

Statistieken van gewonnen partijen
wit 143 (61.37 %) <-White
zwart 86 (36.90 %) <-Black
Remise 4 (1.71 %) <-Draw

Does White have an advantage?

Marfitalu: We should indeed.

Mancala is a nice game to play, but it's less nice if you have opponents who double the number of moves by not resigning after you got 25 points (and there's absolutely no way for them to get a win or a draw).

Fencer, could you build in some logic that finishes the game after one of the players gets more than 24 points? The winner is know, and the rest of the game is pointless.

AbigailII:
I concur, game should be over as soon as 25 points received...  No point in going any longer.

Fencer:

I dunno  LOL
My home game version says "Mancala" on the box and the instruction manual has 3 or 4 different variations of games on it but cant find the manual to give the names of the variations.
Sorry, no help 

Infidel: He is right. More than 24 = at least 25.

:)

joshi tm:

Yes, I concur

Is it just me, or is white a heavy favourite to win this game (stats also say so)? This game is quite similar to the Bantumi game found on Nokia phones (except that in Bantumi, if you land the last seed of a sow in an empty hole on your side of the board, you not only get all the seeds from the opposite hole, you also put that last seed in your collection hole - and this itself is a variant of Kalah), and that game is a win for the first player. Of course, this change in rules (deliberately? bug?) could make all the difference.

I wouldn't mind seeing a handful of variants. Since the variants share a lot of the rules, it should be easier to add a variant than the initial implementation. (Unless Fencer is a spagetti coder, but that I doubt).

Why does the game continue after one of the players has reached 25 points. Is it possible to lose points?

Sorry for having started the discussion about that in the feature request board before checking this very forum, where some of the discussion had already taken place.

To make it short, I am under the impression that one of the rules has been put backwards, and that in the Mancala family it is a constant that when a player is without moves, he - and not his opponent - wins all of his opponent's seeds. I am also under the impression that this error, if it is one, is the cause of the unbalance of the game, and should be corrected.

But as Abigail pointed out, I don't know those games well enough to be positive about that. Does anyone have a better clue ?

ScarletRose:

The rules are not wrong, just a different variation of the mnay hundreds of ways to play the game.
Here is one example Click Here     Look at rule 7 where it says U can play both ways.
I can find other sites also, but just figured I would add my 2 ¢  that the rules here at BK are not wrong, just different.  

I play Mancala at home and the instructions that came with the game also have the same exact rules as that are implemented here at BK.


Rather than change the rules, lets just have different variations of the game.  There are many to choose from. (oware comes to mind)

Hedensk: I learned mancala by the rules that are used here, but I was playing with someone else once and they said my rules were wrong and it was the other way, as suggested by Scarletrose. We looked it up in the rules and I found out it was wrong. so I've played both ways, I usually just go with whatever my opponent is used to playing

nodnarbo:     

Well - i don't know if there is something to learn, but anyway, now the current "Top4" are having a Mancala-Tourney... ;-)

look here

Mancala for 16

Single elimination

16 players

4 days, standard vacation

2 wins match

Has any one played this person? He accuse me of cheating because at end of play he had more points, and apparently outplayed me, but then I won. He does not realise all pieces gets added to your total left on your side of the board. So who outplayed who?? LOL He has me on block now. Hope he read here.

HoityToity:  Thanks for that.  I missed that rule.  That changes the strategy a bit.  I just reread the rules and you are correct.  Your opponent misplayed the game in the end.  I'm glad I read that rule because I just started my first game and I was under the impression that is was only the stones in the mancala that counted.  ;)  

I thought I heard that there was a bug in Mancala.  Then I heard there wasn't.  But I don't get this game (a one move win)  

Tigger:
Wow, whats up with that game?  LOL  
Its impossible to have a one move game and win in Mancala 

or2ak.com:  that's what I thought  :)

Tigger: That's a bug... I tried it out in an uncounted game, after it was obvious that you can make it in Espionage, but maybe I should have made it private too I informed Fencer about it, but I guess he is still on vacation.

Gordon Shumway:  Thanks for the info.  I was just curious and a bit confused.  I've been playing mancala and things seem to be going smoothly.  Whatever that bug is, Fencer will take care of it. :)  I hope he's enjoyed his vacation.  He probably has lots of work to do when he gets back 

Hi, anyone looking for last players in team for the upcoming team tournament? I am rather good player and no fellowship that I am member of has a team. If you are interested, send me an invitation in your fellowship.

Serendipity: If you go to the Team Tournament page, then click on the Mancala team tournament, you will see a list of existing teams that are not yet signed up to the tournament. Request membership to a fellowship that has close to the needed number of players, maybe.

i oinly now realised what i was doing wrong - i thought that when I finished (by putting the last piece in the "reservoiir" it meant the opponents pieces will be added to my score - but they were added to their score as seen in Mancala (ljubisa popovic vs. janajana) DUH- i understood the rules badly

wit 8348 (61.83 %)
zwart 4677 (34.64 %)
Remise 476 (3.52 %)
No one can say white doesn't have an advantage. However, is there any possibility to do about that?

Anybody know what the largest margin of victory is? I won this game by 32 points (40-8).

Mancala (sooooz - joshi tm)
42-6, even won as Black.

joshi tm: They have just introduced Mancala on BugCafe, but they have a choice of playing the game as we do OR having Random placement of stones

Makes it harder, i can tell you

joshi tm: Was white trying to demostrate how badly it's possible to lose?

From what I understand, you can win every game by hording up your stones and just wait for the other player to run out of stones to play and you'll win because you had more on your side of the board....how does that make any sence?

It should be that once a player plays all the stones on his side of the board, who ever has more stones in their resivoir wins.

I think You're right. Game ends in double pass and captured stones should be counted. That's how I played.

Like most games, there are many different variations to Mancala.

really? amazing!

There is one rule I would like to see changed in BrainKing for Mancala. When a player makes a move as a capture, the capturing stone should also be added to their Mancala, in addition to the rest of the stones in that column.

Is anyone else used to playing this way. Most of the mancala strategy I know is based upon this rule. Of course, I know that there is no 'official' version on Mancala and several many versions exist. So I realize what I am stating is just my preference. But, I would be interested to hear if there are others who feel the same.

My sis brought me a Mancala style board from Ghana as a souvenir, but the rules it came with are totally different to the BK version which probably offers different strategies. Could Oware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oware (as they called it, looks like the Wikipedia rules are added to the game I got) be added to the site?

I was teached oware rules when I was about 8. I thought this is the most popular variant but it seems that they are so many of them it's hard to pick one most popular.

some pictures shown are wrong. If you check here (http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=6081570&i=12), the top row shows 8 and 9 beans, but there really were 9 and 10! I counted them and played based on them, and lost of course.
As there is no easy way to know how many beads are in each dip, it makes it hard to play.

joshi tm: is this the version they ahve at goldtoken? I really enjoy that version!