Kōnane

How to play Kōnane

Not from the book. Kōnane is the Hawaiian jumping game, played on carved stone boards with black lava and white coral; it is named in the Kumulipo chant, and Captain Cook saw it played on his last voyage. The rules follow the common modern account (Wikipedia, Ernst's and Bell's descriptions).

From the sources

• The stones fill the board in a chequerboard of two colours. Here eight by eight, with black in the corners.
• To open, Black takes one of its own stones off the board — one from the middle, or a corner stone — and White takes off one of its own next to the gap. Two neighbouring squares are now empty.
• From then on every move is a capture: a stone jumps over an enemy stone standing next to it, straight along a row or a column, onto the empty square beyond, and the stone jumped is taken. No diagonal jumps.
• The stone may go on jumping in the same straight line, never turning, and the player may stop after any jump. Only one stone moves in a turn.
• The player who cannot jump when it is their turn has lost. There is no draw.

My choices

• The opening is fixed: Black takes the middle stone at (4,4) and White the one beside it, so the game begins with the two empty squares in the centre and Black to jump.
• The machine looks several moves ahead and plays for room: the jumps open to it against the jumps open to the enemy.

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