Rules

Aim of the game
To capture the maximum number of seeds.

Players
Two, one opposite the other, who for convenience's sake we will call North and South. On this CD-ROM you are South, and you are therefore looking at the board from the bottom, while North is played by the computer. The one who starts is determined by chance.

The game board
The playing surface is a wooden board with twelve holes, six per side, chiselled out of it; these are deep enough to hold up to twenty pieces.

The territory
Each player has his own territory comprising the six holes in front of him.

The seeds
There are 48 'pieces' to be harvested and sown. They are undifferentiated, and at the beginning of the game do not belong to either of the two players. They could be pebbles, precious or semi-precious stones, marbles, beads, pearls or shells, but in our case the 'pieces' are seeds, which make a characteristic sound during the game.

Direction of the game
The game is played in an anti-clockwise direction.

Preparation
The 48 seeds are distributed between the twelve holes, four in each.

The moves
1) After the player who starts has been chosen by lot, each player in turn picks up the seeds contained in one of the holes in his territory and 'sows' them one by one in the holes that follow. It is possible, indeed often inevitable, that although you start from your territory, you 'sow' in your opponent's territory as well.
2) You must make a move each turn.
3) You may not 'sow' more than one seed in each hole or miss out holes, with the single exception described in the next instruction.
4) Only when more than 11 seeds are to be deposited - and you therefore return to the starting point of the move - 'sowing' continues after missing out the hole from which the seeds were originally taken.

Capture
1) Capture occurs only in your opponent's territory.
2) When the last seed deposited ends up in a hole in your opponent's territory which contains only one or two seeds, these are taken and eliminated from the game, together with the seed which has just been played.

3) If the hole or holes before the one in which the above capture has taken place contains two or three seeds, these too are taken and eliminated from the game.

The end of the game
1) If one of the players, after making his move, finds himself without seeds in his own territory, his opponent, if he can, must make his own move to 'feed' him with seeds. If this is impossible, the game is over.

2) The game also ends when it becomes clear that no pieces can be taken.

Scoring
1) At the end of the game, each player counts the number of seeds he has captured.
2) The player who still has seeds in his territory adds them to the number of captured seeds.

The winner
The winner is the player who has taken the most seeds. That means that, to win, you must have taken at least 25 seeds - 24 seeds each means that the game is drawn.

Warri etiquette

Just as in all aspects of our everyday lives, there are well-defined rules - written and unwritten - to be observed in games. You do not only have to follow the rules relating to moves, capture, calculation of points and winning, but more importantly those governing your behaviour towards your opponent.
Warri, also, has built up a kind of etiquette over the centuries which should be borne in mind and put into practice the first time you decide to play against an African.

Rule 1: In the first game the senior player has the right to make the first move, and it is he who may give up this privilege.
Rule 2: You may not move the pieces in a hole in order to count them - a hole touched is a hole played.
Rule 3: It is extremely discourteous to ask to check that a move just made by your opponent is within the rules. This applies even when expert players drop the seeds into the holes very quickly, and when there are a large number of seeds, in which case it is highly unlikely that you will be able to ascertain if your opponent has obeyed the rule which says that he must drop one seed in each hole.
Rule 4: Never play for money. The real aim of the game is to pit your ability against that of your opponent, and you will find that players who are much better than you will tend to 'cheat' … but in your favour, so that you do not lose too heavily.