How to play Kalah

Kalah is a sowing game from the mancala family, one of the oldest groups of board games in the world. Two players face each other across a board with two rows of six pits and a large store at each end. Seeds move round the board one pit at a time, and every seed that drops into your own store is yours for good. When the seeds run out on one side of the board, the player with more seeds in their store wins.

There are no dice and no hidden cards: everything is on the board, and every move can be counted in advance. That makes Kalah a pure game of calculation. A single move can set up an extra turn, empty a pit for a capture next time, or leave your opponent with nothing but bad choices.

How to play on skill.games

In the settings popup choose a difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard or Crazy) and the number of seeds per pit (3, 4, 5 or 6; 4 is the classic game), then press PLAY. You always move first. Your row is the one nearest you and your store is at its right-hand end. On a phone held upright the board turns so it fits the screen: your row is on the left and your store is at the bottom.

• Your pits glow: on your turn every pit you may sow from has a gold ring.
• Sowing: tap one of your glowing pits. You can also press and slide: the pit under your finger lights up and a dotted ring shows where its last seed will land. Lift your finger to sow.
• Counts: the number of seeds in every pit and store is shown beside it, so you never have to count pebbles.
• The sowing hand: the seeds hop from pit to pit one at a time, with the number still in hand riding along, so you can follow exactly where each one goes.
• Extra turns and captures are announced on the board (AGAIN!, a +n over the store), and captured seeds fly into the store.
• The latest move: a small red dot marks the pit the last move was sown from.
• Score line: the top of the screen shows the seeds in each store and whose turn it is.

The menu button in the top-left corner pauses the game and lets you resume, start a new game or switch the sound on or off. The game is saved at every turn, so an unfinished game can be picked up later with CONTINUE.

At the end the winner's store lights up, then the results screen shows the final seed count and the number of moves, together with your statistics for that difficulty and seed count: wins, losses, draws, win rate, current streak and best streak.

Rules

• The board has two rows of six pits and a store at each end. Each player owns the row nearest them and the store to their right. At the start every pit holds the same number of seeds (four in the classic game) and the stores are empty.
• On your turn pick up all the seeds in one of your pits and sow them, one seed into each following pit, going counter-clockwise round the board. Sowing passes through your own store (it gets a seed like any pit) but skips your opponent's store.
• Extra turn: if the last seed lands in your own store, you move again. There is no limit: several extra turns in a row are possible.
• Capture: if the last seed lands in an empty pit on your own side, and the pit directly opposite holds seeds, you capture them: those seeds and your last seed all go into your store. If the opposite pit is empty, nothing is captured and the seed stays where it landed.
• End of the game: as soon as either row has no seeds left (after any move), the game is over. Each player adds the seeds still in their own row to their own store.
• The player with more seeds in their store wins. Equal stores are a draw.

Strategy tips

• Count to your store. A pit that holds exactly as many seeds as it is away from your store will finish there and give you another turn. On the classic board the pit next to your store wants one seed, the one before it two, and so on.
• Take the free turns in the right order. If several pits give an extra turn, play the one nearest your store first: sowing a farther pit would add a seed to the near one and spoil it.
• Watch the empty pits. An empty pit on your side, facing a full pit, is a capture waiting to happen. Before every move, check which of your pits can reach an empty pit of yours with its last seed.
• Guard your own heaps. Your opponent captures in the same way. A big pit facing an empty pit on their side is at risk: move it, fill the empty pit opposite, or make sure no seed of theirs can end there.
• Hoarding can pay. Seeds left in your row at the end are yours. A large pit near your store that you never sow can decide the final count, but it is also the most tempting target for a capture.
• Run them out of moves. When your opponent's row is nearly empty, every move they make may end the game. Count how many seeds you would still have on your side: if you have more, ending the game quickly is good for you.
• More seeds, longer plans. With 5 or 6 seeds per pit, sowings lap the board and captures get much bigger; with 3 the game is short and every extra turn counts.

Difficulty levels

• Easy: plays a random pit about a third of the time; otherwise it takes whatever looks best right now, without thinking about your reply.
• Normal: looks three moves ahead, counting extra turns and captures, and sometimes plays at random.
• Hard: looks seven moves ahead and also weighs the seeds each side still has in its row.
• Crazy: searches much deeper and, once twelve or fewer seeds are left in the pits, plays the rest of the game perfectly from an exact endgame table. Classic Kalah is known to be a win for the first player with perfect play, and you always move first: but you will have to find that win.

Modes

Seeds per pit sets how many seeds each pit starts with: 3 (36 seeds in all), 4 (the classic 48), 5 (60) or 6 (72). Your statistics are kept separately for each seed count and difficulty.