Dmytro Polovynka

Learn how to play Bao la Kiswahili step-by-step. An evolutionary approach starting with Hus.

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Bao la Kiswahili is a great mancala game, but its rules look so complex, and the task of learning them looks so daunting, that most people surrender somewhere in the middle. Moreover, most of the rules use native Swahili terms, such as Kichwa, Kimbi or Takasia to explain the rules. This makes comprehending the rules even more difficult.

But the game is not that complex as it seems. Rules in the game are logical and usually make perfect sense, but before you learn them, you can’t see it. And grasping all rules at once is extremely difficult.

There are various approaches of learning Bao la Kiswahili. There is a great resource to learn by playing and then there is a beautiful video which explains all the rules, which I will give in the end of an article.

But I will try to give yet another approach which might appeal to some kind of people. I call this approach evolutionary - we start with a simple existing game, namely Hus, which you might even know already. And then step by step new rules will be introduced until we slowly reach to the full rules of Bao la Kiswahili. Each step will hopefully be simple enough and make total sense. I will also use English equivalents for the Swahili terms to make a text less complicated to read.

Theoretically each evolutionary step results in a playable game. And during this journey we will even reach one existing playable game, namely Bao la Kujifunza, which is a simplified version of Bao la Kiswahili. Other games will also be mentioned.

You don’t have to finish the journey during one day. If anything - at least try to play the starting game Hus and then the game at the first checkpoint - the Bao la Kujifunza.

Hus - starting point

Hus is one of the simplest four-row mancala played in Namibia. It is usually played on larger boards, but 4 x 8 also suffices. Players put two seeds into each hole in the outer row (back row, the one nearer to them) and two seeds into four holes on the right part of the inner row (front row). This makes four holes in the inner row empty.

Schematically it looks like this:

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 2 2 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 2 2 2 2
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Game is played counterclockwise. Each move a player picks seeds from any hole, where there are two seeds or more (it’s forbidden to play singletons - holes with a single seed in it), and sows them counterclockwise. Sowing is a special way of moving in mancala - the seeds are dropped counterclockwise one by one starting from the next hole. Sowing in four-rows mancalas is only done in two nearest rows - this means that each player has his own two rows, over which he has total control.

Hus, same as most other four-row mancalas uses relay sowing. This means that if a last seed falls into a non-empty hole, then all the seeds from this hole are picked up and are sown from the next hole. And so it continues until the seeds falls into an empty hole, which ends the move.

Exception to the above rule is when a seed falls into a non-empty hole in the inner row and the opposing hole of the opponent is also non-empty. This situation results in a capture - all seeds from the opponent hole are captured. If the hole in the outer row just behind this hole is also full - then these seeds are captured as well. And then player takes all these captured seeds, then picks the seeds from the hole, where the last seed fell and sows them all starting from the next hole. Basically this continues an ordinary relay sowing, just that it also includes seeds captured from the opponent holes.

If a player can’t move - he has no seeds, or all his holes contain a single seed (singletons) - he loses.

So in short Hus:

If you’ve never played Hus or any other four-row mancala before, I suggest you try it out first to get the understanding of the game.

Now, these are pretty simple rules. How to make Bao out of it? Let’s go step-by-step. Some steps will be simple, some will be more complicated.

Don’t sow own seeds

During capture only opponent seeds are sown. Whereas in Hus seeds from both opponent and own seeds are sown after the capture, in Bao own seeds are left intact.

Inner row capture restriction

The only change in this step is that only seeds from the inner opponent hole are captured. The seeds in the back (outer) row are always safe and can never be captured. Why won’t players move all their seeds to the back (outer) row then? Well, read the next rule.

Winning condition change

A player loses in two cases:

Inner row can be empty even temporary - during the relay sowing. This still counts as a loss. Therefore, in order to win, a player may try to empty the inner row of the opponent.

This winning condition brings an interesting balance. The seeds in the back row are safe from capture. But putting all the seeds in a back row results in a loss, therefore a player should have some amount of seeds in a front row. Without this rule, players would bring all of their seeds to the back row and the game would become very defensive and slow.

Bidirectional play

A player can either play clockwise or counterclockwise. This is different from most other mancala games, where sowing direction is fixed.

A player can choose a direction of the first sowing in a move, but then he needs to keep it during this move. If the move is clockwise - it continues this way until it finishes.

This rule allows a player to choose among larger amount of moves. A broader choice of moves deepens the Bao strategy.

There are other games similar to Hus, which allow choosing the move direction, for example Katra Gorobaka and Katra Mpantsaka. These two games, however, are either poorly documented or have some game play flaws, therefore, unlike other games mentioned in this tutorial, I can’t really recommend them.

Choosing head

Bao has special holes called Kichwa - “heads”. Each player has two heads - these are the leftmost and rightmost holes in his inner row. The captured seeds are not sown from the next hole, as in Hus, but are always sown from the head - either left or right. If a player sows from the left head, the sowing goes clockwise. If a player sows from the right head, the sowing goes counterclockwise. This way captured seeds are distributed primarily into the inner (front) row.

The rule of choosing a head is very simple - sowing should continue to the same direction. If the sowing was clockwise, it should continue this way, therefore left head should be chosen. If the sowing was counter-clockwise, then the right head should be chosen.

Sowing from the head is not different from ordinary sowing. Same rules apply.

Even though this follows directly from the rules, I must mention one example to clear up some possible confusion. If you capture a single opponent seed and sow it into the head, then:

This “head” rule makes a game a bit more predictable. Captures can be calculated nicely, because if a player continues capturing, he will always sow from the head and always into the inner row. Another mancala game, Omweso adopted a different rule to make captures more predictable, and even though it’s different to the Bao rules, the essence of the rule is the same - continuous captures are made from the same hole.

Introducing “flanks” (Kimbi)

Two leftmost and two rightmost holes in the inner rows of each player (so the holes 1,2,7 and 8 in the inner row) are called Kimbi in Swahili. In the absence of a better word, these can be called “flanks” here. This means that a “head” (Kichwa) is also a “flank”.

If a capture happened in one of the “flanks”, then a player is forced to choose a nearest “head” for sowing. This may result in a direction change.

This differs from the previous rules where a player could not change the direction. Please note - capturing in the flanks is the only way to change sowing direction in Bao within a move. In all other circumstances a player should keep the move’s sowing direction.

The already mentioned game Omweso also allows changing the sowing direction, even though the exact rules are quite different.

Introducing “blank” move

If your first sowing in a move was not a capture, you can’t do any captures during this move. You simply relay saw your whole move. This means that even if a last sown seed some time later during the move falls into a non-empty hole, and the opposing hole is non-empty, capture does not happen and a player continues relay sowing ignoring the opponent holes. This move is called a “blank” move, or “takata” in Swahili.

This means that there are two types of moves in Bao:

If you start your move from a hole which has 16 seeds or more - it’s always a “blank” move. In other words - if a sowing would go a full circle - this becomes a blank move automatically This last rule prevents players from hoarding too many seeds in one hole and forces them to calculate number of seeds carefully.

Add more seeds

In the beginning every hole gets 2 seeds. Unlike Hus, in Bao each player starts with 32 seeds.

Add restrictions on which moves are allowed

There are some restrictions of how a player should choose his move. These rules enforce the aggressive game.

Same as in Hus - moving singletons is not allowed.

Now we’ve arrived at our first checkpoint. The game we are playing now is “Bao la Kujifunza” - or “Bao for beginners”. Many of the Bao specialities are already in place:

Next come the rules which are specific for Bao la Kiswahili - the more complex Bao variant.

Split the game into two stages - planting and harvest

Game Bao la Kiswahili is played in two stages, and these two stages are, unsurprisingly, agriculture related. These are planting (I won’t use the “sowing” not to confuze it with the sowing mechanics of the mancala games) and harvest. They are called “namua” and “mtaji” in Swahili. As names suggest, players plant their seeds during the first phase of the game - planting. The second stage - harvest - is played as described before.

In order to be able to plant seeds, a player should have some spare ones. So the initial setup should not have all seeds on board. And that’s exactly what happens. In the beginning players put 6 seeds into the fifth hole (counting from the left), 2 seeds into the sixth and 2 seeds into the seventh hole of their inner rows - that’s the starting setup. Schematically it looks like this:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 2 2 6 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 6 2 2 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

This means that only 10 seeds of each player start the game on board and other 22 seeds are kept in a reserve (because, remember, in Bao each player gets 32 seeds). And these 22 seeds should be first “planted”.

During the planting players take one seed from the reserve and put it into any non-empty hole in the inner row. This means a seed cannot be planted into an empty hole. And it can’t be planted into a outer row either. Planting one seed can be considered as a last seed from a single-seed sowing.

After the seed is planted, then all the seeds are picked from that hole and are sowed in a direction chosen by a player. The sowing then proceeds as usual. For simplification let’s assume for now that all moves are blank and no captures are made during planting (that will change soon).

The planting phase helps to randomize the initial setup.

There are other games which split the game into the two phases. One of those is Bao la Kimasai, and a a player can’t do any captures during the first phase of the game either. And even though it has some inner logic - seeds can’t be harvested during planting, but Bao la Kiswahili is a more aggressive game and allows captures also in the planting stage.

Captures during planting

Actually during planting, same as during harvest, a move can be capturing or blank - depending on whether the opposing hole has seeds or not. Also, same restrictions to the moves apply - if a capturing move can be made, then a player must make it.

So if a player planted his seed into a hole and the opposing hole is non-empty, then own seeds are not sown, but the seeds of the opposing hole are captured and are sown from the head. And the rules of choosing the head are very similar to the ones we already know.

However, if a move is a blank move, then a relay sowing starts in a direction chosen by a player, just as we learned before. Please don’t forget that no captures can be made during the “blank” move, as usual.

After that move continues as usual. If a planted seed resulted in a capture - the whole move is a capturing move. If a planted seed did not result in a capture - then the whole move is a blank move. As you see, the logic of the moves does not change much. Players do plant seeds, but still can choose a direction to move to, at least to some extent.

With captures in place, a game can end already during the planting stage.

There is another game, which allows capturing during planting - Katra Fandatsaka - a game closely related to Bao. In fact if a starting position changes a bit, namely six central holes in the inner rows have 1 seed each and other 26 seeds get into player reserve, we get the Katra Fandatsaka rules now. Starting position is more aggressive in Katra Fandatsaka, because players are forced to make capturing moves from the very beginning.

Gathering seeds in the house

Now - have you noticed the 6 seeds in the fifth hole in the previous sections? Having many seeds in one hole has several strategic advantages which you start understanding when you play the game several times. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to keep these seeds there as long as possible and not relay sow them if the last seed accidentally falls there?

And, lo and behold, Bao rules give you this ability! This fifth hole is called a “house” or “Nyumba” in Swahili. In Bao boards it’s even carved different - namely in a square fashion, unlike other circled holes. So what are the special rules?

Please note - continuing the move “destroys” the house, because all its contents is sown. After the house is destroyed these special rules will never apply to this hole again. Never ever, even if it’s filled with 6 seeds again. As an interesting trivia - when a player decides to relay sow his house it’s called “safari” or “go safari”.

The above rules allow gathering many seeds in the same hole. But now the opponent will surely try to capture that many seeds. And if he succeeds, not only he gains lots of seeds, he also “destroys the house” of his adversary, and it will never ever regain its special powers.

Now what happens if a seed is planted into the “house” during the planting phase? If this is a capturing move, then nothing special happens and the play proceeds as usual - opponent seeds are captured and sown from any head. And if this is a non-capturing move, then, let’s agree, that the house is destroyed and is sown in a chosen direction. Why should we agree? Because this will be changed soon.

The game, as described now is very similar to Katra Be or Katra Sakalava, which is very possibly a precursor to Bao la Kiswahili. The house looks a bit differently (it is split between inner and outer row), and the house rules are also not exactly the same, but still very similar.

For those interested in Katra Sakalava house rules: moves always end in the outer house, ending or not ending the move in the inner house is up to the player, no matter the type of the move - blank or capturing. Players may destroy the house by planting a seed into it. In the harvest phase players may freely pick the seeds for sowing from the inner house to destroy it. When an inner house is destroyed, the outer house is destroy together with it.

Taxation and invalid house

Now let’s immediately break our agreement on what happens when a seed is planted into the house when it’s not a capture. Unlike in Katra Sakalava the house is not actually destroyed. It’s being “taxed” - after the seed is planted there, two seeds are taken from it and sown in a chosen direction. By the way - the only time when a player can make such move is when all other holes in the inner row are empty.

But this can result in a house having less than 6 seeds. What happens now? House becomes “invalid” and loses all its special abilities - namely if a last sown seed falls there, then the move continues and the house is destroyed. However, there is still hope. If a house is refilled with 6 seeds it becomes a valid house again. This is unlike destroyed house - because a destroyed house loses its abilities forever.

This means that a house can be in three states:

Just for clarification - you can’t taxate the house till it becomes empty. Say the house had six seeds and after taxation it has four. It becomes an invalid house and taxation rules do not apply to it anymore. If a seed is planted there and it’s not a capturing move, then a player has to sow the seeds from the house, thus destroying it.

A “taxation” rules gives a player ability to protect his house even in dire situation, even though it comes with some penalty. This looks like a straw for a drowning man.

Planting seeds into singleton holes

Bao explicitly forbids moving with singletons - a player has to choose the hole with more than one seed. But there is no such restriction for planting the seeds in the first phase of a game - a seed can be planted in any non-empty hole, regardless of how many seeds are there.

Except for there is an exception! If a house is destroyed and there are no capturing moves, then a player has to prefer holes with more than one seed. He can plant a seed into a singleton hole only if there are no other moves. Surely, he can always plant the seed into a singleton hole if it results in a capture.

Even though this does not look like a big deal, it still narrows down the amount of moves a player can make if his house is destroyed. Destroying the house is not a thing one should take lightly.

House during harvest time

Sadly, all the above special rules do not apply to the house in the harvest time. It becomes almost an ordinary hole with lots of seeds in it. Almost - because there is still one very special rule we will come to later.

The house can still be valid, invalid and destroyed during the harvest phase, but, logically, it becoming invalid could only happen during the previous phase - planting.

Tactics of gathering seeds in one hole is used in many mancala games even without special “house” rules. Bao gives players additional possibilities to gather seeds during the planting, but cancels these rules after the planting ends. Now Bao players should use other strategies to keep the house full, if they still want it to be this way.

Blocking

Blocking (“takasia” in Swahili) is probably the most difficult rule to explain, even though it’s not all that complex. It’s the last special rule of Bao la Kiswahili. And - honestly - in the beginning you can even play without it. This situation does not happen that often. Moreover, some rule sets don’t even mention it.

Players often attack other player seeds by placing the seeds in such a way as to enable the future capture. But then other player may sow seeds away from that hole thus making an attack void. Blocking rules allow to “block” the attacked hole so that opponent can’t escape from an attack.

So when these rules apply?

Opponent can’t sow seeds from the blocked hole and if a last seed falls into that blocked hole, sowing stops.

But not every hole can be blocked. The blocking rules do not apply if:

So we have a balance between favouring attacking player, but not giving him an opportunity to devastate his opponent by capturing his house or the only seed in his inner row, maybe resulting in an opponent loss.

Whichever move an opponent makes, a player now must make the capturing move to capture the blocked hole even if there would be another, better move.

Never ending moves

Not a rule of a Bao per se. Could be applied to other four-row mancalas as well.

It may happen that a move does not end for a long time. This is a very rare situation and it was proven that it may happen only with a non-capturing (blank) move in Bao. Rules either don’t mention what happens or give different resolutions. If a non-capturing move continues for 3 minutes (or 12 laps):

Pick any rule you like more.

Now, our evolutionary journey has come to an end. We’ve reached the final checkpoint - the full rules of Bao la Kiswahili. Probably now, when you understand some of the inner logic for these rules or how do they relate to other games, reading other rules will be much easier. The game is not as complicated as it seems. I’ve tried it with my six-grader and he did not have problems with understanding the rules. The problem is grasping those rules yourself first. When somebody shows the rules, they do not look that complicated.

Example describing blocking and other rules

No new rules are given here. This is simply a blocking example explained in details.

Imagine this is a situation on board (same as photo above):

0 	 1 	 2 	 1 	 4 	 8 	 2 	 2
10 	 0 	 0 	10 	 2 	 1 	 0 	 1
0 	 2 	 0 	 0 	 1 	 1 	 0 	 0
0 	 0 	 2 	 2 	 0 	 2 	 6 	 4

A South player just played two seeds from the 7th hole in an inner row counterclockwise, thus bringing this position.

All prerequisites for blocking are in place. If it was South move, he could only do one capturing move - using his hole with four seeds to take 2 opponent seeds. This is an only capture available for him.

Therefore, none of the exceptions apply. This hole is blocked. North can’t start the move from it. And if a last seed of a sowing would fall there, the move would forcefully end.

Please note - the singleton in the 6th hole does not attack the opponent hole, because there is no move to actually make a capture.

Now North has to move with one of his 10-seeds hole. Because - remember - moves from the inner row have preference over the outer row.

Whichever move he executes, South now has to execute the capture with 6 seeds even if other captures would be available. Capture move has always a preference, so it can be executed from the outer row. The captured seeds would be sown from the right head, because the move is counterclockwise.

(Described position was taken from the Kibao website mentioned in the sources).

Please note: Bao variants exist, so you may find minor variations to the rules stated above around the web.

As promised I give the links, which give other options of learning Bao la Kiswahili.

First is the online instruction which allows you to learn Bao by playing: https://uk.boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=baolakiswahili

And another one is a video tutorial for the game, which perfectly explains the rules:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKRmq44L_7g

Detailed rules can be found here:

Another games mentioned in this tutorial:

Game not mentioned in the tutorial, but worth mentioning is Bao Kiarabu or Hawalis. It is possible that this game is a grandparent of all other four row mancalas. Its capture methods differs, though. Seed should fall into an empty hole to capture and the captuerd seeds are removed from board:

Research on never-ending move in Bao:

-“Never-Ending Moves in Bao” by Tom Kronenburg, H. H. L. M. Donkers and Alex de Voogt