Mangala (Mancala)

How to play Mangala (Mancala)?

Mangala is a well-established and highly strategic Turkish game, also taught in schools, in which you try to fill your treasury with the most stones by distributing the stones to the right pits at the right time. It strongly improves the ability to perform sequential operations and foresee the future.

1. Each player has 6 holes and a treasure; Initially, there are 6 stones in each pit.
2. The next player chooses one of his own pits and distributes all the stones in it one by one (including his own treasure, EXCEPT the opponent's treasure).
3. If the last piece lands in your own treasury, you make one more move.
4. If the last stone falls into an EMPTY pit on its side, that stone and all the stones in the pit opposite it go to your treasury.
5. The game ends when all of a player's holes are emptied; The remaining stones are added to the other side's treasury. The one with the most stones in his treasure wins.

Mangala (Mancala) strategy tips

• Find the hole where the last stone will fall into your treasury: you win one more move and this chain can continue.
• Target the filled holes opposite your opponent with your own empty holes; You win a bunch of stones with the "last stone falling into the empty pit" rule.
• Leaving the rightmost holes filled provides move flexibility at the end of the game.

Mangala (Mancala) history

Mangala is the representative of the "mancala" family, one of the oldest game families in the world, in Turkish culture. These games, which involve scattering stones into pits, have been played from Africa to Asia for thousands of years.

Mangala/Göçürme was included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list as a "traditional intelligence and strategy game" in 2020, with a joint file including Türkiye. The Oyun Treni version is played with the most well-known Kalah rules in the world.

Other names: migration, mancala, kalah, mancala game, stone scattering game