Awithlaknannai

How to play awithlaknannai

From the book's pages

• Awithlaknannai is a game of the alquerque type played by the Zuni of New Mexico. The board is a row of halved diamonds, as in figure C.
• When the game begins, all the intersections are covered with white or black pieces, except the one in the middle.
• The players move in turn, one piece at a time, to an adjacent empty intersection.
• Capturing follows the same rules as in alquerque: if one of your pieces stands directly opposite one of the opponent's, and the point behind it is empty, you jump over it and take it. Several jumps one after another are allowed. If you could have captured and did not, the opponent has the right to take your piece. Captured pieces are removed from the board.

Read from figure C

• Eight diamonds: nine points on the centre line, eight above and eight below. The diagonal lines run straight through the centre points, from a point below to a point above, so a jump over a centre point follows them. No line joins the tips to each other.
• White has the row below and the four points on the centre line nearest them, black the row above and the four on the other side. The home-made board in the photograph does not have the centre line drawn; the pilot follows the figure.

My choices

What the book does not say is filled in as in the alquerque pilot. Say so if anything should be different.

• The first to take all of the opponent's pieces wins. White begins when no one chooses otherwise.
• The right to take a piece applies to the piece that could have captured, and it is taken before you move yourself. You choose whether to use the right. If someone stops a chain of jumps early, nothing is taken.
• Pieces you jump over stay until the move is finished: the same piece cannot be jumped twice, and you cannot land on its point.
• A player who cannot move has lost.
• The same position three times, or sixty moves without a capture, is a draw.

New game