Dara

How to play Dara

Dara is played by the Dakarkari people of Nigeria, and in Niger by the Zarma, who call it dili.

The rules

• The board. Thirty holes in five rows of six. Each player has twelve pieces of their own colour.
• Dropping. The board starts empty. Taking turns, the players drop one piece at a time into any empty hole until all twenty-four are down. A row of three made while dropping takes nothing.
• Moving. Then, on each turn, a player moves one piece one hole up, down or sideways into an empty hole. Never diagonally.
• A three. A move that lines up exactly three of your pieces, along a row or a column, lets you take one enemy piece off the board. You may not take a piece that is itself part of a three. A move that makes two threes at once still takes only one piece.
• Never four. Four or more pieces of one colour in a line are never allowed — not while dropping, not while moving.
• The end. A player left with two pieces can make no more threes and has lost. A player who cannot move has lost as well.

In this version

• A three only counts when the piece just moved is part of it. Step a piece out of a three and back in again, and it takes again.
• If every enemy piece stands in a three, the move takes nothing.
• Fifty moves in a row without a piece taken is a draw.
• White drops first. The machine looks a few moves ahead: pieces first, then threes, then holes where a step would make one.

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