Seega

How to play Seega

Seega is a game of Egypt, at its most popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is played on boards of five, seven or nine squares a side; here the board is five by five.

The rules

• The board. Twenty-five squares, five by five, with a cross on the middle square. Each player has twelve pieces.
• Placing. The board starts empty. White begins, and the players take turns putting down two pieces at a time on any empty square except the middle one, until all twenty-four are down. Only the middle square is left empty.
• Moving. Now a piece moves one square up, down or sideways into an empty square. No diagonal moves, and no jumping over other pieces.
• The first move. White moves first, and its first move goes into the middle square.
• Taking. When your move traps an enemy piece between the piece you moved and another of your own, along a row or a column, the enemy piece is taken. One move can take in several directions at once. Only the piece that moves can take: moving your own piece in between two enemies is safe.
• Taking again. After a capture, the same piece may move again, but only to a square where it takes again. You can also press «Stop here» to end your turn.
• No move. If you cannot move, you skip your turn and your opponent moves again. If neither player can move, the one with more pieces wins; with equal numbers it is a draw.
• The end. A player left with a single piece has lost.

In this version

• If no white piece stands next to the middle when the moving starts, White cannot move and Black goes first. White's first move must then go into the middle whenever it can, and may go anywhere when it cannot.
• Fifty moves without a capture is a draw.
• The machine looks a few moves ahead, by pieces and by room to move.

New game