Akon game is played in Gabon, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, according to informants from Equatorial Guinea.

ARRANGEMENT OF SEEDS ON THE BOARD

board

This game is played on  a 2×7 board, that is a board with two rows of seven holes. 5 seeds are placed in each hole at start of play. In the following diagram you can see a schematic representation of the board for play akon. The top row belongs to player A. The bottom row belongs to player B.

game pieces

In mancala games is common to use stones, seeds, small conches, feces of goat,…… as game pieces. Generally, these pieces are called “seeds” although they are stones or other objects. In this game you need 70 seeds, 35 seeds per player, although seeds of each player does not differ from each other.

MOVEMENTS

seeding and harvesting

The basic movements of the mancala games are called “seeding” and “harvesting”.  Seeding involves placing seeds one by one on consecutive adjacent holes. Harvesting involves the capture of one or more seeds contained in one or more holes according to the rules of each game. The direction of movement in this game is clockwise. The seeds are placed into the ensuing holes.

Akon game is played with simple laps.

The players play in turns. The player who starts first is chosen on random selection. You pick up the contents of any hole of your row and sow the seeds one by one in clockwise direction. That is, from right to left in the own side of the board and from left to right in the opponent’s row.

When the last seed of a move falls in a hole on the opponent’s side of the board making its contents 2, 3 or 4 seeds, these are captured and removed from the board or collected into the own player’s “store”. When a player picks up 2, 3 or 4 seeds, and the precedent hole contains 2, 3 or 4 seeds as well, these are also captured, and so on but without crossing the limits of the territory or row. So, these multiple captures you can only perform in the opponent’s side of the board. If your last seed of a move falls in a hole in your own territory, your turn is over with no captures being made. You only can capture in the opponent’s side.

It is not allowed to make a capture if the last seed of a move falls in the holes 1A or 1B. So, if you reach with the last seed of a move into an empty hole, into a hole containing 1 seed or more than 4 seeds on the opponent’s row, or into the opponent’s hole 1, your turn is over.

If your chosen hole contains 14 seeds and you sow these, when a lap is done around the board, the starting hole is not skipped. You left the last seed of the lap in the originally chosen hole and your turn is over. But if your chosen hole contains 15 seeds or more, when a lap is done around the board, after you left the last seed of the lap in the initially chosen hole, you skip all the holes remaining in your own row and you continue sowing the seed/s from the opponent’s hole1. If you have remaining seeds in your hand when you reach in the opponent’s hole 7, you skip again all the holes in your own row and continue sowing from the opponent’s hole 1, until you do not have seeds in your hand. If your last seed falls in a hole on the opponent’s side of the board making its contents 2, 3 or 4 seeds, these are captured and removed from the board. If the precedent hole contains 2, 3 or 4 seeds as well, these are also captured, and so on.

If the last seed of a move falls in the first opponent’ hole (1A or 1B) where is not allowed to make a capture, this seed is won by the player who was sowing. The rest of the seeds are left in the hole.

You are not allowed to “starve” your opponent player: you must give your seeds to enable your opponent to continue playing. You only can let without seeds your opponent’s row if you can not make a move that “to feed” the other player.

OBJECT OF THE GAME

Akon game is over when any player has no seeds in his own row and the player can not play. Then, the opponent player captures the remaining seeds. Also the game is over if the game is “looping”, that is, after some turns the same configuration is obtained again and again. If it occurs the remaining seeds are not captured for any player. The winner is who captures the most seeds.

To illustrate better all that we just explained, you can see the following examples:

Let us suppose that is the player A turn. He decide start from hole 2 that contains 18 seeds. Then, he sows the seeds in clockwise direction:

When player A sows these 18 chosen seeds, a complete lap is done around the board, he lets one seed into the starting hole 2A and the 4 seeds remaining in his hand are not sowed in the following hole 3A. The player A skips all the remaining holes in his own row and he continues this multiple lap from the hole 1B until he ends into the hole 4B:

Because the last seed of this move falls into a hole on the opponent’s side (in your own row) making its contents 3 seeds, these are captured by the player A, who was sowing and he removes these from the board. The precedent holes 3B and 2B also contains 3 seeds each one, then these 6 seeds are also captured. But player A is not allowed to capture the seeds contained in the hole 1B, where never is allowed to make a capture. The player A’s turn ends with 9 seeds captured.