How to Play Mancala: Rules, Setup and Strategy

How to set up a game of mancala

A mancala board has two rows of six small pits and a larger pit, the store, at each end. The two players sit facing each other with the board between them. Each player owns the six pits on their side and the store on their right.

Put four seeds, beans or stones in each of the twelve pits, 48 in all, and leave both stores empty. Four is the most common start. Three a pit makes a shorter game and five a longer one, and Sunflower Mill Mancala offers both in Settings.

In Sunflower Mill Mancala your pits are edged in gold. On a computer or a tablet held sideways they run along the near side of the board with your store on the right; on a phone held upright the board stands lengthwise, with your pits down the left and your store at the bottom. Pepper’s pits, edged in blue, face yours, and her store is at the other end. Every pit has its count on a little badge, and each store shows its count on a plaque, so you never need to count by eye.

Mancala rules and the goal

The goal is to finish with more seeds in your store than your opponent has in theirs. Players take turns, and on every turn you must sow one of your own pits that has seeds in it. You never sow from your opponent’s pits or from a store.

A seed that reaches your store stays there for the rest of the game, so every seed you sow into your store is a point you keep. Seeds in the pits are still in play: they move around the board and can be captured.

There are only three more rules to learn: free turns, captures and the end of the game. The sections below take them one at a time.

How sowing works

To sow, pick up every seed in one of your pits. Then, moving counterclockwise, drop one seed into each pit that follows: first along your own row, then into your store, then along your opponent’s row. If you still have seeds when you come round to your opponent’s store, skip it and carry on into your own pits again. Your opponent’s store never gets a seed from you, and yours never gets one from them.

For example, if your third pit holds four seeds, they go one each into your fourth, fifth and sixth pits and into your store. If it held six, the last two would go into your opponent’s first two pits.

A pit with many seeds can go all the way round the board. Because one store is skipped, there are 13 places to drop seeds in, so a pit with 13 seeds puts its last seed back into the pit it started from.

Free turns

If the last seed you sow lands in your own store, you take another turn straight away. There is no limit: a good run of free turns can earn several moves in a row.

You can tell a free turn before you move by counting. A pit earns one when its seed count equals its distance from your store: one seed in the pit next to the store, two in the pit before it, and so on up to six in the pit farthest away. A pit with 13 more than that, which goes all the way round first, works too.

Captures

If the last seed you sow lands in an empty pit on your own side, look straight across the board. If the opposite pit has seeds in it, you capture them: take that last seed and every seed in the opposite pit and put them all in your store. The pit you started from counts as empty once you have picked its seeds up, which is how a 13-seed pit always captures.

Your opponent captures the same way, so a big pile of yours across from one of their empty pits is at risk whenever they can land a seed in that empty pit.

Rule sheets differ about one case: your last seed lands in your own empty pit, but the pit across is empty too. With the usual rule, which Sunflower Mill Mancala plays unless you change it, nothing is captured and the seed simply stays. A common variant sends that one seed to your store anyway; choose it in Settings as Empty captures too.

How the game ends

The game ends the moment either player’s six pits are all empty, after any move, even in the middle of a run of free turns. The other player then puts all the seeds still in their own pits into their own store. Count the stores: more seeds wins, and equal stores are a tie. With 48 seeds, 25 is enough to win.

Rule sheets for other mancala games handle the leftover seeds in different ways. In Kalah, and in Sunflower Mill Mancala, the seeds left on a side always go to the owner of that side. That makes the last few moves a race: emptying your own side early hands your opponent everything still on theirs.

Controls in Sunflower Mill Mancala

Tap one of your pits to sow it. The seeds are carried round the board and dropped one at a time, the count badges change as each seed lands, and the message line says what happened: a free turn, a capture and how many seeds it took, or the end of the game. With a mouse, resting the pointer on a pit rings the place its last seed will land and tells you in words.

On a keyboard, the arrow keys move between your six pits and show where each one’s last seed lands, Enter or Space sows the pit in focus, and the keys 1 to 6 sow your pits in order toward your store. U undoes and H asks for a hint.

Undo takes back your last move together with Pepper’s reply, as many times as you like. Hint asks the same deep search that Sharp Pepper uses for your best move and says why: a free turn, a capture, or simply the strongest move it found. Menu starts a new game and opens Settings, where you choose Pepper’s level, three, four or five seeds a pit, the capture rule, who goes first and the sowing speed. Statistics are kept for each level, and your game is saved on your device as you play.

How strong is each level?

Pepper has three levels. Gentle takes the free turns and captures she can see in front of her, but often just plays a pit she likes. Steady looks four moves ahead and watches for your captures. Sharp searches far deeper, often a dozen moves ahead.

To check that each level does what it says, we ran our own simulation of 1,000 games for each pairing, with four seeds a pit, the usual capture rule and the first move alternating between the players. A random player picks any legal pit. The scripted beginner takes a free turn when it sees one (from the pit nearest its store), otherwise the biggest capture it sees, otherwise a random pit, which is roughly how many people play their first games.

The beginner beat Gentle about three games in four, so Gentle really is beatable while you learn. Steady wins most games against that beginner, and Sharp almost all of them. These are computer players, not people, so treat the numbers as a guide to the gap between the levels.

Beginner strategy

Count before you move. For each of your pits, work out where its last seed will land. That one habit finds every free turn and every capture on the board.

Take free turns first, starting with the pit nearest your store. Sowing that pit leaves your farther pits untouched, so any free turns they had are still there for your next move. Take them in the other order and the first sowing can spoil the second.

Look across the board before you move, not just at your own side. Find Pepper’s empty pits and check what sits opposite them on your side. If a big pile of yours faces an empty pit she can reach, move that pile, or sow a seed into her empty pit so it is no longer empty.

Plan a capture of your own. An empty pit on your side, with a full pit across from it, is a target: look for one of your pits whose last seed would land there.

Common mistakes

Feeding your opponent. Sowing a big pile drops many seeds into the other player’s pits, which gives them more seeds to play with and more chances for free turns. Sometimes it is right, but count what it hands over first.

Using up a free turn too early. A pit with exactly the right count is a free turn waiting for you. Spending it when you have nothing else lined up can be fine, but taking a free turn from a far pit before a near one often destroys the near one.

Ignoring the end of the game. Players often empty their own side late in the game without noticing that the game then ends and every seed left on the other side goes to the opponent. Count both rows before your last few moves.

Forgetting the stores are skipped one way only. You sow into your own store but never into your opponent’s, so a pit that seems to end in their store actually ends one pit later on your side.

Tips for winning more games

Hoard on your side late. A row of seeds you can keep away from captures is worth points at the end, because the leftovers on your side are yours when the other side runs empty.

Let one pit grow. A pit you leave alone fills up as seeds are sown into it, and once it holds 13 or more it can go all the way round the board and make a capture the other player cannot easily stop. Just keep an eye on the pit across from it, since a big pile is also a big target.

Leave your opponent bad choices. Before you move, look at what Pepper could do next: a move that leaves her no free turn and no capture is often better than one that takes a seed or two.

Use undo and the hint to learn. Ask for a hint when you are unsure, read why it likes the move, and use undo to try your own idea against it and see how Pepper answers.