Game Play and Rules
1. Players decide who will play the Tiger, and who will play the Oxen. The Tigers have three black tiger pieces, and the Oxen have twelve white oxen pieces.
2. The board is empty in the beginning. Players first drop their pieces onto the board. R.C. Bell unfortunately did not describe in detail how they are dropped onto the board. In some other hunt games, the Oxen would probably start first dropping one oxen onto the board, and then the Tiger would drop one tiger onto a vacant point on the board, with both players continuing dropping their pieces in this fashion alternating their turns. Obviously, with this method, the Tiger would stop dropping its pieces much earlier compared to the Oxen since the Tiger only has three pieces. After all three tigers have been dropped, then the tigers can move and capture. Similarly, after the Oxen has dropped its twelve pieces (which will end in twelve turns), the oxen can then move. Another method that could be employed is the one used in the Myanmar game of Tiger and Buffaloes. The Oxen would start first and drop four of its pieces, and then the Tiger would drop one of its pieces. Then the Oxen would drop another four pieces, and then the Tiger would drop another tiger piece. Then the Oxen would drop its remaining four oxen, and then Tiger would drop its remaining one tiger. However the game is truly played, players can decide among themselves how to fairly start the game.
3. Both tigers and oxen move (in any direction) along a line onto a vacant adjacent point on the board. All lines are orthogonal, therefore, all movements are left, right, forward, and backwards. Only one tiger or oxen may be moved in a turn. Players alternate their turns.
4. A tiger, however, can instead leap over an adjacent oxen, and capture it (short leap method as in draughts). The leap must be in a straight line, and the tiger must land on a point on the board immediately beyond the oxen. The leap must also be in an orthogonal direction since leaps must also follow the orthogonal pattern of the board. The leaped oxen is removed from the board. R.C. Bell did not mention if multiple leaps and captures are allowed.
Read more about this topic: Sua Ghin Gnua
Famous quotes containing the words game, play and/or rules:
“A Stander-by is often a better judge of the game than those that play.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“They should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)