Hus

How to play hus

Hus is a distant relative of wari, and games like it with four rows are played all over southern and eastern Africa. All the pieces stay in play, and the number by each player is the pieces on that player's half.

The rules

• The board has four rows of eight holes. The two rows nearest you are your half, and you only ever play on your own half.
• Each player has 24 pieces: two in every hole of the back row, and two in each of the four right-hand holes of the front row. Lots decide who starts.
• On your turn, pick up all the pieces from one of your holes that holds two or more. Sow them one at a time into the holes that follow, going with the sun — clockwise around your half.
• If the last piece lands in an empty hole, your turn is over. If it lands in a hole that already held pieces, pick them all up and sow on from there.
• Capturing: if the last piece lands in an occupied hole in your front row, and the opponent's hole directly across is not empty, you capture the pieces in it. The capture runs on along the opponent's front row, hole by hole, until it reaches an empty hole. If the holes on both sides have pieces, it runs the way that captures more.
• Sow the captured pieces around your own half, starting in the hole where your last piece landed. The last of them is treated like any other last piece, so one move can capture several times.
• When it is your turn and you have no hole with two or more pieces, you have lost. If you have no pieces left at all, your opponent wins double.
• Hus is played in sets of seven games. A win scores one point and a double win two; the most points after seven games wins the set.

In this version

• A capture is never optional: whenever you can capture, you do, and capturing comes before picking up.
• If the game goes round in circles, or 200 moves pass without a capture, the player with the most pieces wins.
• A move that never ends is stopped after 3000 pieces have been sown.

New set

A set is seven games. Lots decide who begins each game.