Oware Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Starting the Game
• Moving Pieces
• Capturing Pieces
• Ending the Game
• Further Information

Starting the Game

1. The game is played on a board with two rows of six pits. Each row, and all the pieces it contains, belongs to a particular player.
2. At the start of the game, each pit contains four pieces. All the pieces are the same colour; ownership of a piece is determined by its location on the board at a given time.
3. Players decide between themselves, at random or by agreement, who is to make the first move.

Moving Pieces

4. A player moves by choosing a pit on his own side of the board and lifting all the pieces from it. Then, proceeding anticlockwise around the board, the player drops one piece in each consecutive pit until his hand is empty.
5. It follows that a player may not choose a pit that contains no pieces.
6. If twelve or more pieces were lifted, then while dropping the pieces the player omits the pit from which those pieces were lifted.
7. A player must not make a move which leaves his opponent's pits completely empty (see also rule 11).

Capturing Pieces

8. If the player drops the last piece from his hand into a pit on his opponent's side of the board, and that pit then contains two or three pieces, then those two or three pieces are captured by the player and removed from the board.
9. If the pit into which the previous piece was dropped is also on the opponent's side, and contains two or three pieces, then those pieces are also captured. This is repeated for each preceding pit until either: (i) the pit contains some other number of pieces, or (ii) the pit is on the player's own side of the board.

Ending the Game

10. The game is over if one player has captured more than half of all the pieces. That player is the winner.
11. The game is also over if a player's opponent's row is empty, and the player has no possible move that provides his opponent with pieces to play. In that case, the player captures all remaining pieces and the game ends. The winner is the player who has captured the most pieces.
12. The game is drawn if both players have captured exactly half the pieces.

Further Information

Readers interested in learning more about Oware/Wari may wish to consult:

• Bell, R. C. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, vol. 1, pp. 116-121. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1979.
• Murray, H. J. R. A History of Board-Games Other than Chess, pp. 158-164 & 181-182.
• Parlett, D. The Oxford History of Board Games, pp. 209-210. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.