Mancala Rules of Hoarding

Series Summary

Mancala is a term that refers to a very old group of counting games that most likely come from Africa. Also known as sowing or count and capture games, most varieties of Mancala, of which there are many, involve moving game pieces and capturing them from the board. Games usually require two players who try to control the board or force their opponent’s hand.

Thought to have its origins in agriculture—as many games are played with seeds, stones, or beans—Mancala games may have been some of the first ever played by people looking for something fun to do. Some would even compare Mancala to chess as games that involve simple moves but highly complex strategies.

In this free video series, learn basic Mancala rules and strategy. Once you get up to speed on how the game is played, our expert will give you tips and time-tested techniques for winning, including hoarding, rushing, starving, raiding, and stalling. Continue the tradition and learn how to play this ancient counting game.

Video Transcript

" Hello! My name is Melissa Schenk and on behalf of expertvillage.com, today we’re discussing strategy techniques for playing the game Mancala. Now, when discussing strategy techniques, if you look on the Expert Village website, I’m sure you will also find basic tips and techniques for playing the game Mancala. If we get into strategy techniques for playing the game Mancala, I’m already assuming that you know how to play the game, the basic plays of the games, and now we’re going to go into strategy techniques of course. The first strategy technique that we’re going to be focusing on is something called hoarding. Now, when I’m giving you these techniques as well, I’m sure you already know that when playing the game Mancala, in your smaller bins you can play with the 3 stones in each bin, 4 stones. That would be 48 pieces. 3 stones would be 36 pieces. You can even do advance play, where you’re playing up to 5 or 6 stones. In these clips, I’m going to focus on mainly 4 stones in each of the smaller Mancalas. So, we’re playing a game of 48 pieces, which is usually what most people on average tend to use when they play the game Mancala. Okay, so strategy technique number one is hoarding. If we go to our game board and have a look at the board, we’ve set it up so that we’ve got different letters around the board, so that when I’m explaining various pieces I can point to the letters A-F or G-L. A Y stands for you and M is for me. Of course, when we’re playing the board, we go counterclockwise around the board, so that A-F would be my smaller bins and my larger Mancala is M and G-L is yours. Alright, so when we’re talking about hoarding, let’s refer to the bin marked by the letter L. Hoarding basically occurs when a player allows their pebbles or their stones to accumulate in a certain bin and they refuse to play that bin. You can see in L, we’ve accumulated 8 stones, which is quite a bit. Now, in hoarding, this is always good because you have to remember the object of the game is not to be the person to go out first, but rather to have the most stones in your Mancala. If I were to go out first perhaps, then you would get to keep all these stones in these various bins and add it to your larger Mancala. Now, a risk of this strategy is sometimes it makes a very, very sort of a tempting bait for you opponent, because remember if your last stone falls in an empty bin, you get to keep all of the stones opposite that. I would then, as a strategy for myself, try to empty out A so that I can steal all of your stones in L. "