You’ve almost certainly never heard of Toguz Korgool, which literally means “nine sheep droppings.”  But, in honor of my upcoming posts from the World Nomad Games, it’s probably a good idea that I explain to you exactly what I was doing there for 9 hours a day: I was playing a board game called Toguz Korgool (also known as Toguz Kumalak in Kazakhstan).  And I guarantee you that in 15 minutes or less, you can be playing too.

Toguz Korgool is a game in the mancala family of games.  In case you never played it as a kid, this type of game has a board with little bins down each side, and a big bin at each end.  On each turn, you pick up all the stones sitting in a bin, and drop one stone in each subsequent bin going counterclockwise until you run out.  It’s dead simple.  And as it turns out, because it is so simple, games in this family exist as traditional games on every continent.

Now imagine mancala on steroids.

Toguz Korgool has nine holes on each player’s side, and at the beginning of the game each hole has nine stones in it (a total of 162 stones).  You’ll notice the game’s name is also “nine sheep droppings” (or in Kazakh, “nine stones”), because this number is considered sacred in the Kyrgyz and Kazakh cultures.  Because there are so many stones, it also means that this is a long game with hundreds of thousands of permutations.  In fact, I would argue that it is harder than chess to master.

Play is simple.  The first player chooses a hole, takes all but one stone from that hole, and adds one stone to each subsequent hole until he runs out of stones.  For example, a common opening move is “76,” which means that the player picks up 8 of the 9 stones in his bin 7, then drops one in bin 8, on in bin 9, then one in each of his opponent’s bins 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and finally 6.

There are essentially two main rules in Toguz Korgool.  The first rule is how to capture stones.  If the last stone you drop into a bin (in the case of the example above) makes that bin even, then the player captures all of those stones.  In the example above, the last stone lands in a bin of 9 stones, making it 10.  This means that the player captures all 10 of those stones.

The second rule is called “tuz” or “tuzdik” in Kazakh.  This rule states that if your final stone lands in a bin with 2 stones in it, then you capture those 3 stones, AND that bin becomes “tuz,” or as I like to call it, a black hole that captures for you every stone that lands there (cue evil cackle).  Tuz can be made in every hole except for 9, and cannot be made in the same place as your opponent’s tuz (that means that if I get a tuz on 1, which is my favorite place to get it, then my opponent cannot get a tuz on 1).  A special colored stone is added to show that a bin is tuz.  Tuz adds a very interesting dynamic to play, because it exacts a sort of “tax” from every move your opponent makes, sometimes forcing them to play more aggressively.  Likewise, a tuz on your side means you have to play strategically to deny your opponent a lot of stones.

The last rule, which only comes up in some games, regards when you run out of stones.  If you run out of stones, then your opponent gets to keep every stone on their side.  This mechanic means that the endgame of Toguz Korgool is all about hoarding and trying to make your opponent run out of moves.

The game is over when one player reaches 82 stones.  This sometimes is obvious (such as when the champion of Kazakhstan DESTROYED me), but other times, you don’t know who won until one person runs out of stones, and they all are counted up.  The easy way to count?  Reset the board.  Whoever doesn’t have enough stones to put 9 stones in each bin loses.  Ties are surprisingly common at the elite level.  One of my matches was 82-80.  That time, we literally thought there was a mistake, because he had 8 stones in one bin, and I had one extra stone.  Then we realized the result.

In tournament play, we had to write down every move so that the game could be reconstructed.  This is super easy – on each line you write white’s move and black’s move. The notation is two numbers – the first is the bin it started in, and the second is the bin it ended in.  When reconstructing a game, it should be clear which bin these refer to.  Finally, an X is added if a tuz was gotten by that player that turn.  Players may also note down how many stones were captured on given turns on that sheet in order to add up when one person reaches 82.

This game is super easy to learn, as you can see.  But mastery is another beast entirely.  At the end of every day at World Nomad Games, Team Toguz Korgool USA met up to talk about what had been working and what hadn’t.  Is it in your interest to capture as much as you can?  Or is it better to sacrifice stones to get a tuz early on in the game?  Is it better to attack at all costs or to always defend and run your opponent out of moves?  And the age old question, which bin is best for tuz?

Each player has their own style, as we learned.  Some players, like the Kazakh champion, play a brutal offensive game that both protects every bin and captures on almost every turn.  Others play conservatively, instead seeking to hoard stones while you slowly run out of moves.  But this game, like chess, demands a great deal of forethought and analysis.  You have to know at all times how many stones are in each bin, and which bin that bin “targets.”  You have to know at all times how many stones are in your opponents’ bins, and which of your bins are vulnerable (i.e. have an odd number of stones) as a result.  And you need to think up to three turns ahead on each turn, just in case your move suddenly makes one of your bins vulnerable to a bin of your opponent that gained a stone from your move.  In a single turn, you analyze the destinations of 18 bins, and the future of each of those 18 bins one move ahead, pending 9 of your possible moves, and 9 possible responses.  And you have that many bins for the entire game, not just the first half.

I’m only just getting my feet under me for this game.  But given how well things went at World Nomad Games, I think this may be the beginning of a fun new hobby.  At the very least, it’s the genesis of a fun new club for me to lead here in Osh.

If you’re interested in learning how to play, there’s a few cool resources you can check out.  First is Toguz Universe, which describes basic rules and strategy, and has great links to downloadable app versions of the game (due to its complexity, though, the AI is REALLY stupid).  Second is IGGameCenter, which is an online board games forum with an ENORMOUS Toguz Korgool/Kumalak section.  It’s where most hobbyists practice.

Finally, check out YouTube! There’s a bunch of interesting videos about the game, its rules, and its cultural significance.  I’ll leave you with a few embedded right here to take a look at.

Got questions? Want to know more? Ask away in the comments!