Sow, steal, fill your store
How to play Mancala with a friend
- Sow your stonesTap a pit on your side. You pick up all its stones and drop them one by one into the next pits, round the board.
- Store? Go againYour store is at the end of your row. If your last stone drops into it, you take another turn straight away.
- StealIf your last stone lands in an empty pit on your side, you take it plus every stone in the pit across from it.
- Fill your storeWhen one side has no stones left, each player adds the stones on their own side to their store. Most stones wins.
Count before you tap: every pit tells you where it lands
Sowing drops one stone per pit, so a pit's stone count tells you exactly where its last stone will land. A pit that sits three pits from your store and holds exactly three stones ends in your store. That is a free extra turn, and it is sitting on the board in plain sight.
Strong players scan for those first, and they take them in a particular order: nearest the store first. Sowing from a pit only touches the pits after it, so playing the one closest to your store never changes the count of the pits further back. Play them the other way round and the first move ruins the second.
Done well, that turns one turn into three or four, which is how a level board becomes a ten-stone lead.
An empty pit is a loaded pit
The steal is the only way to take stones from the other side, and it is set up by emptiness. Any empty pit on your side, facing a big pile on theirs, is a capture waiting for a stone to land in it.
Read it both ways. Before every move, look at their empty pits and what sits across from them. A big pile of yours facing one of their empty pits is a pile you are about to lose. Move it, or sow a stone into their empty pit so it is not empty any more.
Live, a move a day, one phone or in Messages
Live, you both stay in the game and the stones move as you tap. A game takes a few minutes.
A move at a time, you make your move and put the phone down. Your friend is told it is their turn and answers when they like, so one game can run all week.
On one phone, two players share one screen and pass it across the table. And on an iPhone, Mancala also plays inside Messages.
Three things that actually help
- Look for a pit whose stone count equals its distance from your store. That's a free turn.
- Take go-again moves from the pit nearest your store first. Sowing from it leaves the pits behind it alone.
- Before every move, check their empty pits. A big pile of yours across from one is a steal waiting to happen.
Mancala questions
Which Mancala rules does this use?+
Classic Kalah: six pits a side with four stones in each, a store at the end of each row, an extra turn when your last stone lands in your store, and a steal when it lands in an empty pit on your side.
What happens when one side runs out of stones?+
The game ends. Each player adds the stones still on their own side to their store, and the bigger store wins.
Does my friend need to be online?+
No. Make your move and put the phone down; they are told it is their turn and answer when they like. If you are both there, the same board plays out live.