How to play Mancala: Kalah rules and strategy

Mancala rewards counting. Know exactly where your last seed lands and you can chain extra turns and set up captures.

The rules

Each player has six pits with four seeds each and a store on their right. On your turn, pick up all the seeds from one of your pits and sow them anticlockwise, one per pit, including your own store but skipping your opponent’s. If the last seed lands in your store, take another turn. If it lands in an empty pit on your side and the pit opposite has seeds, capture them all, plus your last seed. When one side is empty, the other player stores their remaining seeds. Most seeds wins.

Count to your store

A pit lands in your store when its seed count equals its distance from the store. The pit next to your store needs 1 seed, the one before needs 2, and so on. Look for these every turn.

Chain your extra turns

Play the extra-turn pits closest to your store first. Emptying a far pit first can change the count of the near ones and spoil the chain.

Set up captures

An empty pit on your side, facing a full pit, is a capture waiting for the right count. Equally, watch your own full pits: if your opponent can land in the empty pit opposite, they’ll take them.

Hoard on the right

Seeds in the pits near your store are easy to bank later and hard for your opponent to reach. Late in the game, a big pile there can win it.

A strong opening

As first player, sowing the third pit from the left (four seeds) lands in your store for an extra turn. Then sow the pit next to your store.