Jarmo
Opening Position
Alternate Names
Jasir (Tartar, "Archers") is a variant of Jarmo. Both of the variants are sometimes referred to collectively as Halma, but this could easily be confused with the traversal game Halma.
No. of Players
Two
Equipment
A Jarmo board and five each of black and white reversible counters (the white are here shown in red) are required for play. In this game, the counters are referred to as "Archers". The best counters to use for the game are reversible with a special mark on one side. An interesting aspect of Jarmo and Jasir is that the board is asymmetric. Each player has a different view of the game from their side of the board. The lines connecting the holes are not the same for each side of the board.
History
This game was probably invented by Tartar people in or near the Gobi desert of present-day Mongolia and northern China. Legends of it being played and introduced into Europe by Batu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, would indicate that it dates to at least the the 13th Century. Although, if the game was popular at that time, it is likely to be much older than that. These legends usually say that Batu would play the game before a battle to mentally prepare himself for the fight. The game is being played to this day in Poland and other Eastern European countries.
Objective
A game is completed when one player manages to move all of his or her non-captured archers to the opponent's first row. At this moment, the final score for both players is tabulated and the player with more points wins. A player scores two points for every friendly archer standing on the opponent's first row and one point for every friendly archer at any other positions on the game board. Because Jarmo is an asymmetrical board game, it is usually suggested to play a tournament of an even number of games with players switching sides after every game and tabulating all points gained during the tournament.
Play
Players flip a coin or throw lots to determine which player will go first and the board is set up as above. Alternate turns entail the movement of a single friendly counter along a line to the next cell. Counters may move in any direction to the next, so long as it is along one of the connecting lines on the board. If the next cell is occupied by an opposing counter it is captured by replacement and removed from the board. An archer that has captured an opposing counter is then marked or reversed to distinguish it. (Following my suggestion given above, the counters should be reversible to demonstrate the special mark on one side. Alternatively, if you are using stackable counters and have some extras, a double archer can be created to distinguish. If the capturing archer makes another capture at a later point in the game, no extra markings are required. Captures are not compulsory.
Archers that make it to the other player's first row can no longer move backward to re-enter the rest of the board behind them. They must stay there for the remainder of the game unless they are captured by an enemy archer that moves backwards onto it.
When a marked archer reaches the enemy's first row, it allows for that player to take back one of their captured archers from the opposing player and re-enter it at any available hole in the player's first row. What if none of their counters have been captured yet? If no holes are available on that turn, the player must wait to place it on their next opportunity. That does not take a turn?
In order to avoid some unnecessary draws, a player cannot move an archer back and forth between two holes in four consecutive turns.
Variations
There are reported to be many regional variants of this game, but the basic structure of all of them is similar enough to indicate a common ancestry.
Jasir ........
Sources