Seega

How to play Seega

Not from the book. Seega is an Egyptian game, at its most popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the rules follow the account on Wikipedia, which draws on Lane's «Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians» (1836) and later descriptions. Where the sources give several ways, the one taken is marked below.

From the sources

• A board of five by five, played also on seven by seven and nine by nine. Each player has half the squares less one: twelve pieces on the small board. The middle square is often marked with a cross.
• Players take turns placing two pieces at a time, on squares of their choice, until all are down; no piece may be placed on the middle square.
• Then the pieces move: one square along a line, never diagonally, never over another piece. The first move of player 1 must be a piece moved into the middle of the board.
• A piece is taken when the moved piece closes it in between itself and another of the mover's pieces along a line; several can be taken by one move, one in each direction. Captures only occur when a player bounds the pieces of the opponent: a piece that moves in between two enemies is safe.
• After capturing, the player can move again if that results in another capture.
• In some versions the game ends when one player has only one piece left; in others only when the last piece is gone.

My choices

• White places first, so white is player 1 and makes the first move — into the middle, when a white piece stands next to it; otherwise any move.
• Going on after a capture is a choice, with the same piece, and only into a square where it takes again: press «Stop here» to end the turn instead.
• A side that cannot move skips the turn and the other side moves again — the first of the ways the sources give. When neither can move, the side with more pieces wins.
• One piece left loses. Fifty moves without a capture is a draw; the sources give no rule for it.
• The machine looks a few moves ahead, by pieces and by room to move.

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