Bawo

Bawo is a traditional mancala-style board game played in West Africa, particularly in Nigeria and Ghana. It is a game of strategy and calculation, typically played by two players. The game is played on a wooden board with two rows of six pits, or depressions, and two larger pits, called stores, at either end. Each player controls the six pits on their side of the board and their store.

The objective of Bawo is to capture more seeds than your opponent. Players start with a certain number of seeds in each pit, usually four. On a player's turn, they choose one of their pits containing seeds, pick up all the seeds from that pit, and then distribute them one by one into subsequent pits, moving counter-clockwise around the board. If a player's last seed lands in a pit that already contains seeds, they pick up all the seeds from that pit and continue distributing them. Captures occur when a player's last seed lands in an empty pit on their opponent's side, and that pit is then removed from play, along with the seeds captured. The game ends when one player can no longer make a move, and the player with the most captured seeds wins. Variations in rules and scoring exist across different regions.