Gabata

Opening Position

Alternate Names

Gebeta, Abalala'e

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A Gabata board and 54 pebbles or some other kind of counter are required for play.

History

Gabata is played in northern Ethiopia and Sudan. Its antiquity is not known, but it was first recorded in western literature by J. T. Bent in 1893, in his book Sacred City of the Ethiopians. It was thought obsolete until 1971, when Richard Pankhurst recorded, in the Ethiopia Observer, that it was still being played.

Objective

The winner is the player that captures the most pebbles.

Play

The board is setup as shown above with the two players sitting opposite each other along the longer sides of the board. Each player owns the six holes in his nearest row, and the three rightmost holes in the middle row. Following the route shown below, the game starts when both players simultaneously lift all the pebbles from one of their pits and sow one stone into each successive pit along the route. When the last pebble is placed into a hole, the contents of that hole are picked up and the sowing is continued. This first phase of the game is continued in a race fashion until one player sows a stone into an empty hole.

The player who sowed the last pebble into an empty hole in the race phase begins the second phase by picking up all the stones from any one of his own pits and sowing them, one into each pit along the route. When the last pebble is placed into a pit, the contents of that pit are picked up and the sowing is continued, This continues until the last pebble of a sowing is sowed into an empty pit. If the last pebble is sowed into one of the opponent's empty pits, it then becomes the opponent's turn. If the last pebble sowed is into one of the player's own empty pits, the player then captures all of his opponent's pebbles in the same column, placing them in his store at his right side of the board, and continues sowing using the single pebble from the last pit. If the last pebble is sowed into one of the player's own pits and there are no pebbles to capture, then the player's turn is over and his opponent plays.

Turns alternate in this fashion until one player has no pebbles in his pits when it is his turn to play. His opponent then captures all of the remaining pebbles on the board. The player with more captured pebbles then is the victor.

The players may also decide to continue the game with one or more rounds. This is done as follows: the player with less captured pebbles takes them all from his own store and places them, three per pit, into his own pits, starting at the left-most in the back row. The player with more pebbles takes the same number of pebbles from his own store and places them, three per pit, onto his own side, starting at the left-most hole in the back row; the balance of his pebbles remain in his store. Play resumes in turns starting with the player with the most pebbles.

Strategy

Variations

Sources

1. Board Games of the World: Gabata. http://www.boardgamesoftheworld.com/gabata.html