Srand

Srand Opening Position

Alternate Names

Quadruple Alquerque, Dhamet

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A Srand board and forty each of black and white counters are required for play. One source reports that in its native land, Srand players call the black counters men and the white counters women. The men are represented by short sticks while the women are pieces of camel dung.

History

There were several game boards incised into the stone roofing slabs of the Temple of Kurna at the ancient city of Thebes on the Nile River. This temple is believed to be constructed around 1350 BCE, during the reigns of Rameses I and Seti I. Of these boards, there is one that is today referred to generically as the “Quadruple Alquerque board”. This board is used for similar games played in India, Indonesia, and the Sahara of Africa. Srand is played in many parts of North Africa and is the national game of Mauritania.

Objective

The goal is to capture all of the opponent’s counters, the first player to achieve this being the winner. A player may also win by blocking any legal move by his opponent. If it is agreed that a draw seems imminent, the player with more counters may declare victory.

Play

Counters are placed at all the intersections except the middle one, as above. Alternate turns between players entail the movement of a single friendly counter towards the opponent’s side along a line to a neighboring vacant intersection or a jump over an opponent’s counter in a straight line to a vacant intersection beside the counter being jumped. Non-jumping moves may be made forward only, but a jump may be in any direction. Counters are captured by being jumped over and are then removed from the board. Double or multiple captures in one move are permitted and direction may be changed after each enemy counter has been jumped. On any turn that it is possible to take an opponent’s counter it is compulsory to do so. If a player does not make the compulsory capture on their turn by failing to notice it, their opponent may then huff (remove) that counter as a bonus before their next move.

Upon reaching the far end of the board a counter is promoted to a Mullah (Sultan). A counter that only briefly reaches the far end of the board as part of a jumping sequence, however, does not promote. The mullah is very powerful and may move any distance along an unimpeded line in any direction beginning with the player’s next move. A mullah may also jump and capture in any direction.

Strategy

An advantage may be gained by sacrificing a few counters in exchange for several. It is also wise to sacrifice a few counters to promote one to Mullah. Remember that men standing on the diagonal matrix have greater range of movement. On half of the squares they can capture in eight directions, in the other half they can capture in four directions and move in only one.

Variations

Ratti-chitti-bakri from Punjab, India; Meurimueng-rimueng peuet ploh (“Tiger Game Played with Forty”) from Sumatra, Indonesia; and Dam-daman from Java, Indonesia all seem to be identical to Srand except that capture is not compulsory in these games. It is reported in one source that removal of captured counters is deferred until later in a variation, but the source fails to describe how this works.

Satoel is a little-known board game played on Simalur, an island off the west coast of Sumatra. It is also very similar to Srand, only with two triangles added at both ends allowing each player to commence with forty-six counters to fill all but the center position at the start of the game.

Sources

1. Pentagames. Compiled by Pentagram. 1990. Fireside, Simon & Schuster Inc. ISBN 0-671-72529-7.