How to Play Ouril: Rules of The Traditional Game

If you’re facing the board, anti-clockwise means you will drop a seed into each pit moving to the right along your row, then continue to the far end and proceed along your opponent’s row from their left towards their right. (In other words, you loop around the oval track of 12 pits in a counter-clockwise direction.) Skip over any end storage pits during sowing – they are only for storing captured seeds and are not part of the sowing cycle.

If you have enough seeds to go all the way around and return to the pit from which you started, do not drop a seed into that original pit as you pass it. This prevents seeds from endlessly cycling in one hole.

Once you have placed the last seed from your hand, your sowing ends. (However, see “Captures” below – a capture might occur as your turn’s result.)

If your final sown seed lands in an opponent’s pit and that pit now contains exactly 2 or 3 seeds in total, you capture all those 2 or 3 seeds. Remove them from that pit and keep them in your store or aside in front of you.

In addition, if the pit immediately preceding that one (i.e. the pit you sowed into just before it, which will also be on your opponent’s side) now has 2 or 3 seeds, you also capture those. You may continue capturing backwards in this manner – taking seeds from consecutive opponent pits – as long as each pit in sequence contains 2 or 3 seeds. This chain stops when you reach a pit that does not hold 2 or 3 seeds, or if you run out of the opponent’s pits. All captured seeds are collected and set aside as your winnings.

If your last seed lands in the opponent’s side and that pit ends up with four or more seeds, no capture is made from that pit (four or higher is considered safe). Likewise, any pits before it are not captured unless they were already taken as part of a continuous chain of 2s or 3s.

A fundamental strategy is to keep as few vulnerable pits on your side as possible. Holes with 1 or 2 seeds are “weak” because they can easily become capture targets for your opponent. Try to minimise the number of pits on your side that contain fewer than three seeds at any given time. Conversely, encourage such low counts in the opponent’s pits. By sowing in ways that leave your opponent with many pits holding 1 or 2 seeds, you increase the chances that you can make captures on future turns.

In summary: bolster your side, weaken the enemy’s side.

Look for ways to attack multiple opponent pits in one turn. An expert Ouril player doesn’t capture just one pit if they can help it – they aim for a chain reaction. One common tactic is to sow seeds so that two or more of the opponent’s pits will end up with 2 or 3 seeds simultaneously, making them all capturable in a row. If you did it correctly, your opponent will be unable to save all those pits from capture on your next move.

Planning these multi-hole attacks requires thinking a turn or two ahead, anticipating how your sowing will distribute seeds across the board.

Sometimes, a player will accumulate a large number of seeds in a single pit on their side. For instance, a pit containing 12 or more seeds – enough to lap the board – is informally called a “kroo” in some circles. The advantage of a big stack is that it can unleash a devastating move: sowing a full lap (or more) and potentially capturing a “huge number of seeds in a single move”.

However, hoarding is double-edged. A massive sow can be predictable and might feed the opponent’s side generously, or if mis-timed, it could set up captures for your opponent. Allowing your opponent to make such a move is usually a fatal mistake, so both players will try to prevent the other from ever using a kroo effectively. Use this tactic sparingly and strike when the moment is right.

Advanced players know how to manipulate the flow of the game. One tactic is sometimes called “winning time” – intentionally forcing a situation where your opponent must give you seeds. For example, you might play in such a way that you empty your side at a safe moment, compelling your opponent to make a feeding move that drops seeds into your pits (which you can then capture). This requires careful timing.

Essentially, you momentarily sacrifice having seeds in play to put the responsibility on your opponent to keep the game alive, hopefully on terms favourable to you. It’s a high-level strategy that revolves around the feeding rule and can swing a game when executed well.

Skilled Ouril players often mentally count out the contents of pits and simulate potential moves ahead of time, much like chess players analysing variations. Counting seeds in each pit is crucial to foresee where your last seed will land and what it will create.

By continuously evaluating the numbers, you can avoid moves that set up an obvious capture for your opponent on their next turn, and instead steer the game toward positions where you hold the advantage.

It’s advisable always to be aware of how many seeds are in each of your opponent’s pits and what sowing outcomes will result. This allows you to set up long capture chains for yourself while preventing the opponent from doing the same. In essence, every move should be made with a plan two or three moves deep – a necessity when playing experienced rivals.

In the first few moves, try to sow seeds in a way that creates future capture opportunities for you while not immediately handing any to your opponent. For example, you might avoid making a move that leaves one of your opponent’s pits holding exactly two seeds on your final drop, because that could allow them to capture those on their turn. Instead, you might aim to leave four or more seeds in any pit you end on (preventing capture), or leave only one seed (which isn’t directly capturable by the rules unless built up further).

Some players pay special attention to the far-left and far-right pits (on each end of the rows). These end pits are often involved in the initial sowing cycle. A standard tip is to avoid emptying your end pit too early, as this would give the opponent an easy capture from the adjacent pit. Conversely, if your opponent empties one of their end pits and it results in your end pit now holding 2 or 3 seeds, be ready to capture.

In general, be mindful that distributing seeds from the edges can quickly affect multiple pits simultaneously.

In the opening phase, one mistake to avoid is sowing all four seeds from a pit such that the last seed lands in an opponent’s pit that had 1 or 2 seeds – essentially delivering a capture to your opponent on a platter. Unless you are the one doing the capturing, that scenario should be avoided in your early moves.

Sometimes, the safest opening moves are those that result in the opponent’s pits having either 4+ seeds or zero seeds, neither of which can be captured immediately.

Since both players have full pits at the start, think about how your first move will leave the board, and what options you will have on your second turn. A strong opening often involves setting a subtle “trap” that springs into action two moves later.

For instance, you might sow seeds in your first turn that don’t capture right away, but arrange the seeds such that no matter what your opponent does, on your next turn, you can make a capture. Achieving this comes with experience – as you play more, you will start recognising patterns of distribution that lead to inevitable captures.

The standard board has 2×6 pits, but there are reports of some communities playing on a 2×7 board (14 pits total). In such a case, each pit would still start with four seeds (56 seeds total). This is not common across most islands, but it has been documented (for instance, a variant on the island of Brava known as Urim can use a 2×7 board). Unless you specifically encounter an alternative board, you can assume the 2×6 format in Cape Verde.

The fundamental capture rule (twos and threes) generally holds everywhere. However, one documented variation allows capturing not just 2 or 3 seeds but also chains of four seeds in certain conditions. This is an exception rather than the norm – neighbouring West African variants might influence it.

In standard Ouril, a pit with four seeds is safe from capture, but some local rule-sets might treat a sequence of four as capturable if it appears in a continuous chain with twos and threes. It’s always wise to clarify such rules with your opponent if you’re playing outside your usual circle.

As already noted, Cape Verdean players adhere to the rule that you cannot sow a single-seed pit if you have any pits with more seeds available. This rule is uniform across the islands as a matter of good sportsmanship and to maintain a dynamic gameplay. It prevents players from making zero-impact moves just to skip a turn. Only when all your pits contain exactly one seed each are you free to pick up a singleton.

In the classic form of Oware (in Ghana, for example), a move that would capture all of an opponent’s seeds in one turn is disallowed – the player must refrain from such a “grand slam” to avoid starving the opponent. In Cape Verde’s Ouril, the approach is a bit different.

Some island rules allow the grand slam capture – if you manage to set up a move that clears out every seed on your opponent’s side, you may take them, but you must then feed the opponent a seed on your extra turn immediately after.

Essentially, you get to reap the big reward, but the game doesn’t end. You are required to make a move that drops at least one seed into the opponent’s row so they can continue. This rule is often used in organised tournaments and serious play to balance aggression with fairness.

While a casual game is simply won by capturing 25+ seeds, in some settings, they treat Ouril as a match of multiple rounds. For instance, a variant from Brava uses a point system: capturing 3/4 of the seeds (36 out of 48, or 42 out of 56 on a larger board) would count as a 2–0 victory, whereas just a simple majority win counts as 1–0. This is reminiscent of how one might score sets in a tournament. Such a system might be encountered in formal competitions or scholastic tournaments, but it’s not used in ordinary pickup games.