Rules of toguzqumalak
Toguzqumalak is the Kazakh nine-pit mancala, played on a board of eighteen pits and two stores. It is also written togyzqumalaq, togyzkumalak or toguz kumalak, and Kyrgyz toguz korgool is a close relative. These are the rules this site plays by.
The board
Each player owns a row of nine pits (otau) and one store (qazan). Every pit starts with nine balls (qumalaq), so 162 are in play. The eighteen pits form one ring, and play runs counter-clockwise around it.
Moving
On your turn, choose any non-empty pit in your own row and sow its balls one at a time, counter-clockwise, beginning with the pit you took them from — so the first ball lands back where it started. The one exception: a pit holding exactly one ball sends that ball to the next pit and is left empty.
Capturing
If your last ball lands in a pit on your opponent's side and leaves that pit holding an even number, you take every ball in it into your qazan. Landing on your own side never captures.
The tuzdek
If your last ball lands in a pit on your opponent's side and leaves it holding exactly three, that pit becomes your tuzdek. The three go to your qazan, and from then on everything that falls into that pit is swept into your qazan at the end of the move — which is why a tuzdek always reads as empty.
Three restrictions govern it:
- each player may claim at most one tuzdek per game;
- the opponent's ninth pit can never become one;
- and your tuzdek may not mirror your opponent's — it cannot be the pit with the same number on the other side.
Winning
The 162 balls cannot split evenly, so the first player to gather 82 wins. Exactly 81 each is a draw.
Atsyrau
A player who starts their turn with no balls left anywhere in their own row is atsyrau — starved. The game ends there, the balls still on the board go to whichever side's row they sit in, and the starved player's qazan decides it: 81 is a draw, anything less is a loss. It is tested only at the start of a turn, because the opponent's reply can sow balls back into your row and rescue you.
One game, many spellings
The name is written toguzqumalak, togyzqumalaq, togyzkumalak and toguz kumalak in Latin script, тоғызқұмалақ in Kazakh and тогызкумалак in Russian. They all name the same game.