COMPETITION RULES
OF OWARE
Oware is a strategy game for two players, mostly played by
people in the West Africa. To play oware you will need a
game board and forty-eight game pieces, for example some
seeds or balls. The board consists of two rows of six
holes located at opposite sides. Two larger holes on the sides
of the board are used to store the seeds players capture during the match. The
player, who captures more pieces wins the game.
OWARE – intellectual game (countries of Western Africa)
Composition of the teams – 5 people: 2 men, 2 women, 1 coach.
Competitions are held as an individual and a team competition. Swiss system is
used to make a pairing.
Number of rounds – 7. The results are counted separately for the men’s and
women’s teams. The time limit is 20 minutes for each player for one game.
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Competition rules of Oware
Oware is a strategy game for two players, mostly played by people in the West
Africa.
To play oware you will need a game board and forty-eight game pieces, for
example some seeds or balls. The board consists of two rows of six
holes located at opposite sides. Two larger holes on the sides of the board are
used to store the seeds players capture during the match. The player, who
captures more pieces wins the game.
North player
6 5 4 3 2 1
0 4 4 4 4 4 4 0
4 4 4 4 4 4
1 2 3 4 5 6
South player
Initial Setup
In the starting position, each hole excluding the two largest
ones (stores) contains exactly four seeds. In this position the
south player will make his first move, followed by a move by the north player
and so on until the game ends.
The goal of oware is to capture the greatest amount of seeds as possible. To do
so, players make moves in alternate turns until one of them has captured more
than 24 seeds. The player who captured more seeds than his opponent when
the game ends wins the match. It may also happen that both players have
captured the same amount of seeds at the end. In this case, neither player wins
the game and the match is said to have ended in a draw.
Each move of the game is done in three phases: collecting, sowing and
capturing. During the sowing a player distributes the collected seeds along the
board, and during the capture phase the player takes, if possible, the seeds
found in the pits of the opponent.
Collecting Seeds
In the first phase of a movement, the player who is to move chooses one of the
holes on his own side of the board and collects all the seeds on it, leaving the
hole empty. Subsequently, these seeds will be distributed on the board during
the sowing phase.
A player may collect the seeds from any of the holes that belong to him if it
contains one or more seeds, only with the exception that after making the
move his opponent must be able to play. Therefore, a move that would leave
all the holes empty on the opponent's side is not legal.
Sowing Seeds
During sowing, the player distributes the seeds collected in the first phase
along the board in a counterclockwise direction; dropping one seed in each of
the playing holes until all the seeds are distributed. A player will never sow on
the holes used for storage.
After sowing the seeds, the hole from which the player has
collected seeds will be empty. It may well be the case that
the player sows twelve or more seeds, in which case the
player will sow them going round around the board,
dropping one seed in each hole in every round, but never
dropping a seed in the hole from which the seeds were collected.
Capturing Seeds
When the last sown seed is dropped in one of the holes belonging to the
opponent, and after dropping the seed the hole contains exactly two or three
seeds, the player will capture them. Taking all the seeds from the hole and
saving them in his own store.
When the hole immediately to the right of the last pit from which seeds were
captured contains also two or three seeds, the player will capture them too.
And so on until the player cannot capture more seeds, always taking into
account that players can only capture seeds from their opponents holes and
never from their own holes.
Note that a player can never capture all the seeds of the adversary. If a player
makes a move that would capture all the seeds on the opponent's side, that
player will sow normally but will not capture any seeds.
The game is over when one of the players has captured more than 24 seeds or
when both of the players have captured 24 seeds.
It may also happen that a player cannot make any legal move on his turn, in
such a case, each player captures the remaining seeds on their side of the
board and the match ends.
A special situation is when the game enters a cycle, so that the same positions
and movements would repeat indefinitely. If this happens, players may agree
to end the game and each player will capture the remaining seeds on their side
of the board.
The game is played with the time limit 20 minutes per player per game with the
standard chess clock. Players should call the arbiter when at least one has less
than 3 minutes left. The tournament will have seven rounds, pairing for each
round will be made according to the swiss system. The player
who wins the game gets 1 point, the player who looses the
game gets 0 points, if the game is a draw, then both players
get 0,5 points. Score of the game is counted as a number of
the seeds in player’s store in the moment, when one of the
players collect 25 or more pieces. In case of draw, score is 24:24. When one of
the players runs out of time, his store is counted. If he has 25 or more, he gets
1 point, if he has 24, the game is draw, if he has less than 24, he has 0 points
and his opponent score is 25.
The players obligatory records the games.
Tie breaks:
- number of points;
- Head to Head results between the players involved
- the progress coefficient;
- the Bucholz coefficient;
- the Berger coefficient;
Results from the individual games are counted for team competition. If both
players wins, the team gets 2 points, if one player wins and one looses, then
the team gets 1 point, if both players looses, the team gets 0 points and so on if
the game finish as a draw.
Tie breaks:
- number of points;
- highest cumulated score from lost games;
- the progress coefficient;
- the Bucholz coefficient;
- the Berger coefficient.
