Hoyito I
From Wikimanqala
Hoyito (Spanish)
Kay (Kreyol) |
|---|
| El hoyito, casitas, mate, casitas de mate, caille |
| Played in: Dominican Republic Haiti |
 |
| Multiple lap |
| One cycle |
| Holes captured between games |
| 4 to 12 holes per row |
| Two rows |
These are the rules of the more well-considered hoyito game.
It was recorded as being played in Barahona, Neiba, Villa Jaragua, Los Ríos, Postrer Río, La Descubierta and Port-au-Prince.
Contents |
Rules
It's a two players game.
It is played on a board made by two rows of six holes (other sizes were recorded, but 2x6 seems the more common).
At the begining each hole has four pieces
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| Initial position |
Each player controls the row closer to him.
Players take turns to move.
At her turn the player takes all the stones from a hole belonging to her side of the board, and sow them counterclockwise.
If the last stone lands in an occupied hole all these stones (the one just landed plus the ones that were already there) are taken up and she keeps on sowing starting in the next hole, unless
- The last stone lands in an hole making a casa (four pieces). In this case, she captures the contents of this holes.
Once a capture has been made, the player looks into the preceding hole, and if it also has four pieces, she captures them, and all the pieces from the unbroken sequence of preceding holes containing four pieces.
If a player has made a capture, she plays again.
If the last stone lands in an empty hole the turn ends.
If in her turn a player can not play (has no stones on her side) her turn passes.
The one who makes a capture that leaves only four stones on the board captures also these four stones and the game is over.
The winner of the game is the one who has captured more pieces
Match Rules
Once a game is over a next one is started, but:
- Each player fills as many holes on her side as she can with four pieces into each. The empty ones are not used to play in this game. Nevertheless, they can be recovered on following games.
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| Initial position after a game ended at 16-32 for South |
- The winner of the preciding game starts.
The winner of the match is the one who leaves the opponent with no pieces at all at the end of a game.
Variations to the rules
Some people play this way:
- On your first move you decide the sense of your moving, clockwise or anticlockwise. For the rest of the game and match you keep playing this way.
This may leed to both players playing in opposite senses.
In some cases it was recorded that, at each move, players choose the sense of sowing. Even if they captured sowing in a sense, the extra move could be on the opposite sense.
A guy called Johnny (20) in Barahona, who was from the Batey (sugar engine) played the standard way, but:
- Just collecting from last hole, not the previous ones
- On the first two games, last 4 stones are captured by the one who captured the previous 4
- On next games, the last 4 stones are captured by the one who won the previous game
He knew also the more standard version, but considered his a stronger one.
Another variation came from Gregorio (56), from La Descubierta.
- The first move is done with the contents of two holes, first one and then the other, as j'erin in Nigeria
References
- Bautista i Roca, Víktor
- (2004) Hoyito.
- Bautista i Roca, Víktor
- (2005) Africa Hidden Inside a Small Hole. Paper presented in the VIIIth Board Game Studies Colloquium. Oxford. April 2005.
