Gulek (English)
From Wikinfo
See also:
Article about Gulek in German.
| Gulek |
| Inventor: Michael Winkelmann, 1987 |
| Ranks: Circular |
| Sowing: Single laps |
| Region: Austria |
Gulek was invented by the Austrian math teacher and game designer Michael Winkelmann in 1987 . The game was awarded the first prize of the design contest at the 3rd Austrian Game Festival in Vienna in 1987. Gulek was published by the Vock'sche Werkstatt in 1990. The game is an unusual mancala-variant for 2-6 players.
Contents |
Rules
The game board consists of 15 pits, a big hole in the center, and a circular furrow in between. Each player has 20 balls of his colour.
First Stage
At the beginning, players take turns putting one of their balls into a pit. It doesn't matter whether this pit is already occupied by another ball or not. The first stage ends when all balls have been distributed.
Moving in the Second Stage
On his turn a player sows the contents of a pit, one by one, into the ensuing pits (either clockwise or counterclockwise). It is only permitted to choose a pit which contains at least two balls, one of which must have the player's colour. Singletons cannot be moved. The last ball distributed in a turn must always be a ball of the player's colour. At the end of the turn a player may remove any pairs of his own balls, if a pit contains only just one pair and no other balls. These pairs are put in the circular furrow. Later a player may place any number of these pairs each one into an empty pit instead of making a proper move.
A player must move, if he can, but passes until he is able to move again, if he can't.
Captures
Balls of the opponent which are in the last pit of a sowing are captured. They are removed from play by putting them into the big hole in the centre.
Goal
The game ends when neither player can move.
The player with the most balls on the board wins. The game is a draw when no ball was captured in the last five moves.
Variations
The game can be shortened as follows:
- A player loses if he can't move.
- In the first stage, two balls are placed on the board each turn.
References
- Translated and adapted from the German Spielwiki article on "Gulek", http://unknowns.de/wiki/index.php?title=Gulek, under the GNU Free Documentation License of the German version. The list of authors is available on this page.
