Mancala rules: how to play Kalah

There are two rows of six pits. Your six run into your store: along the bottom to a store on the right on a wide screen, or down the left side to a store at the bottom on a phone held upright. Your opponent has the other row and the other store.

Each of the 12 pits starts with 4 seeds, so there are 48 seeds in play. The stores start empty. Whoever ends with more seeds in their store wins, which means 25 is a win and 24 each is a draw.

Pick one of the pits on your side that has seeds in it. You can't pick an empty pit, and you can never pick from your opponent's row.

• Scoop up every seed in that pit.
• Drop them one at a time into the next pits, counter-clockwise: along your row, into your own store, then along your opponent's row.
• Skip your opponent's store. Seeds only ever go into your own.
• If you have 13 or more seeds, you go all the way round and drop one back into the pit you started from.

If your last seed lands in your own store, you go again. There's no limit: land in your store again and you get a third turn.

A pit lands in your store when it holds exactly as many seeds as there are steps to your store. The pit next to your store needs 1 seed, the one before it needs 2, and so on up to 6 for the pit furthest away.

If your last seed lands in an empty pit on your own side, look straight across. If the pit opposite has seeds, you take all of them, plus the seed that just landed, and put them in your store.

Two things that don't count: landing in an empty pit on your opponent's side, and landing in your own empty pit when the pit opposite is empty too. In both cases the seed just stays where it is and your turn ends.

The game ends the moment either row is completely empty, whoever's turn it was. Each player then puts the seeds left on their own side into their own store.

That last rule matters more than it looks. If you empty your own row early, the game stops and every seed your opponent still has on their side goes straight to them.

Mancala rewards counting. Before every move, count the seeds in each of your pits and work out where the last one lands.

• Open with the third pit of your row, counting from the end furthest from your store. It has 4 seeds and is 4 steps from your store, so the last seed lands in the store and you move again.
• When two pits can both reach your store, play the one nearer the store first. The far pit sows through the near one, so playing it first adds a seed to the near pit and spoils its count.
• Keep the pit next to your store small. With 1 seed in it, it's a free extra turn whenever you need one.
• Look for your own empty pits facing a full pit across the board. If you can end a move there, that's a capture.
• Watch the same thing from the other side: a big pile of yours sitting opposite one of their empty pits is a capture waiting to happen. Move it, or fill their empty pit by sowing past it.
• Near the end, seeds on your side count for you. Don't race to empty your row if your opponent has more left on theirs.

Mancala is the name of the whole family. Kalah is the version with stores, extra turns and the capture-from-opposite rule above, and it's what most people in the US and UK grew up calling Mancala.

Oware, played across West Africa and the Caribbean, is a different game in the same family: there are no extra turns, you skip the pit you started from on a long lap, and you capture from your opponent's row when your last seed makes 2 or 3 there.

On ScampLabs the computer has three levels. Easy picks a pit at random. Medium looks one move ahead and likes moves that end in its store. Hard looks 8 moves ahead, extra turns included, and it counts better than most people do.

Start on Medium. Once you're winning there, Hard will show you every capture you left open.

It’s free in your browser, with no sign-up. Play Mancala against the computer, with a friend on the same screen, or with someone online.

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