Omweso board game

This is known as 'relay' sowing. This is the end of Upper's turn. Wherever a pair of holes in the front and back are occupied they may be captured by the opponent. So Lower chooses to play the 4 seeds from m. He sows them into n,o,p and the last one into h. Since the last seed fell into h, and he already had seeds there, then he captures Upper's vulnerable seeds in A and I.

He takes these 6 seeds and sows them anti-clockwise from the hole from which he scooped the capturing seeds i. He sows the 6 captured seeds one into each hole as follows: n, o, p, h, g, f. He has now captured C and K. He takes these 6 captured seeds and plays them again from m, one seed each into n, o, p, h, g, f. This was a particularly devastating attack on Upper, who cannot easily retaliate since none of his seeds can land in occupied holes opposite Lower's vulnerable pairs bj, ck, go or hp.

But Upper can capture with D, J 2 xh and the game continues. The most interesting rule in Omweso is the reverse capture rule where a player can choose to sow clockwise but only to make a capture directly from his left-most 4 holes i. Lower can choose to reverse capture by playing the 3 seeds from i clockwise round to c to capture the 2 seeds in FN.

Close mobile search navigation Article navigation. Volume 52, Issue 2. Previous Article Next Article. Article Navigation. June 01 She a is a widely recognized and exhibited female sculptor in Uganda. Her major artistic research interests are reconfiguring cultural artifacts of the Baganda.

She has practical experience in initiating and organizing national and international artists workshops and residencies in Africa. This Site. Google Scholar. Author and Article Information. Rose Namubiru Kirumira. Online Issn: If the last sowed seed lands in a previously occupied pit, all seeds in that pit, including the one just placed, are immediately sown, before the opponent's turn. This relay-sowing continues until the last one ends in an empty pit.

Players are permitted to perform special sowings apart from the normal ones before any seeds have been captured. These special moves do not capture and end after a single lap. Different modes have been described:. If the last seed sown lands in one of the player's eight inner pits, which is occupied, and furthermore both the opponent's pits in this same column are occupied, then all seeds from these two pits are captured and sown starting from the pit where this capturing lap began.

Neither player is permitted to capture any seeds on their first move of the game. If they make a move which would normally capture some seeds, instead they just carry on sowing as if it was a non-capturing move. Instead of sowing in a counterclockwise direction, a player may sow clockwise from any of their four leftmost pits if this results in a direct capture.

During a long continued move, a player may play both forward sowing and reverse capturing laps, and is never compulsed to prefer one over the other as long as the conditions are met.

There are two more winning conditions, which can be agreed by both sides before the start of the game. They are used in some tournaments:. It is possible for a move to go on forever. In tournament play, a player is allowed up to three minutes to finish his move - if this cannot be done, the game is annulled. Never-ending Omweso moves have been analyzed by mathematicians. Notes: 'r' means reversed direction clockwise Only the first laps are given - the remaining ones are forced.

The first two moves of South consist of numerous laps, but only those are given, where the player has a decision to make. The position is called "Ilukor's 25 Case 4" and has , iterations. It was discovered by Professor Y. Ilukor Kampala, Uganda in Under the CC by-sa 2. Mancala World Explore.