The Last Stone in Mancala

The Last Stone in Mancala
Hi! My name is Melissa Schenk on behalf of expertvillage.com, today we’re discussing basic tips on playing the game Mancala. Now let’s talk about the last stone. What I mean by this is, it's not your last stone before you’ve won the game. What I’m trying to get at here is every time you’re taking stones out of these smaller compartments, think about what’s going to happen to your last stone. Because there are ways that you can get more stones and there are other ways that you can advance to get more turns. For instance, there are 2 examples here that I want to demonstrate. The first one and again, we’re talking about the last stone. You get to choose which of these 6 compartments every time that you want to take stones from and sow them. The object of the game, don’t forget, is to get the most stones in your larger compartment okay. So if we’re thinking strategically, I’m going to take the stones out of this compartment here and I’ll tell you why. We sow 1 stone in each of the 2 compartments, I had 3 stones. Once we get to our larger compartments right in here, if your last stone goes in your compartment, it means you get another turn. Bingo! You’ve already advanced yourself with some more stones. So then what I’ll do is I’ll take more stones here and I’ll sow them again, okay, so I’ve gained myself one more turn. Now another thing to keep in mind, this is great way to steal your opponent’s stones and you have to count, so you want to think again strategically, you want to think ahead. We’re sowing our stones in each of these compartments here, being careful, just put one stone in at a time. For instance, I’m going to move this one in here but if your last stone ended up in an empty container on your side however, there were stones opposite of it, this is where it gets fun, you get to take all of those stones plus that last stone and put it into your compartment as well, a great way to steal your opponent’s stones. So if your opponent isn’t paying attention, you’ve got to do some counting ahead and that’s why it gets more difficult the more stones you add because upwards when you get into 6 stones, sometimes the compartments get so filled up you can’t do any counting in there. So it gets a little tricky but a lot of fun. Stay tuned for our next clip.