Ô ăn quan

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Ô ăn quan (literally: Mandarin Square Capturing) is a traditional Vietnamese children's board game. This game is valuable for enhancing calculating and strategical ability.

Board, pieces, and players[edit]

A rectangle which is divided into ten squares (5x2) with two semicircles at each kết thúc is drawn on the floor or the yard. The ten squares are called "rice field square", "fish pond square" or "citizen square" and the two semicircles are called "Mandarin squares".
Pieces may be stones, fruit seeds or any other small things.
Two players or two teams sit in two sides of the board. Each controls one side of the board.

History[edit]

The game's origin is unknown, as it has been played for many years. Many people say^{[citation needed]} that Vietnamese ancestors were inspired by green rice fields to tướng invent a game that could be played in those huge fields. At first, the game had become quite popular throughout the country. However, as time passed Vietnamese children no longer had the same passion for the game lượt thích those in the past. For this reason, the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is exhibiting the game with fully explained instructions with the aim of keeping the game alive among children nowadays.

According to tướng many researchers, Ô xơi Quan belongs to tướng the Mancala family of games.

Rules[edit]

Setup[edit]

Each player places one big stone or ten small stones (called the "Mandarin piece") in the Mandarin square as well as five small stones (called "citizen pieces") in each of the rice field squares.

Objective[edit]

The game ends when all the pieces are captured.

If both Mandarin pieces are captured, the remaining citizen pieces belong to tướng the player controlling the side that these pieces are on. There is a Vietnamese saying to tướng express this situation: "hết quan tiền, tàn dân, thu binh, chào bán ruộng" (literally: "Mandarin is gone, citizen dismisses, take back the army, selling the rice field") or "hết quan tiền, tàn dân, thu binh, kéo về" (literally: "Mandarin is gone, citizen dismisses, take back the army, retreat")

Whichever player has more pieces is the winner (a Mandarin piece is equal to tướng ten or five citizen pieces).

Scattering[edit]

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Players play rock paper scissors to tướng determine the first player.

The first player takes up all the pieces of any rice field square on their side of the board and distributes (Vietnamese: rải: literally: scatter) one piece per square, starting at the next square in either direction. When all pieces are distributed, the player repeats by taking up the pieces of the following square and distributing them.

If their side of the board is empty, they must use five previously-won pieces to tướng place one piece in each square on their side before repeating the distribution. (If they vì thế not possess any pieces, they must borrow a piece from the other player and return it when counting the points at the kết thúc of the game.)

Capturing[edit]

When the next square to tướng be distributed is empty, the player wins all the pieces in the square after that. A square that contains a lot of pieces is the nhà giàu square (literally: rich square).

When the next square is an empty Mandarin square, or the next two squares are empty, it becomes the other player's turn.

In some game variations, the Mandarin square can contain little citizen pieces called quan non (literally - quan: Mandarin; non: young or unripened) which may not be captured.