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Asian traditional game : Congkak

Congkak is one of the famed traditional games in Asian. There are many people that like this game If you would like to know more about congkak, this place are the right place for you to see pertaining to it.

There are few method to play congkak which the tool also is very basic. Previously and I trusted that numerous of the persons in the previous day might take on congkak with merely some stone as the tools.

What is congkak.
Congkak is a Asian traditional games and also two or three other vicinity in the region. It is a game in which it expect two people to play it. The intention of the game is to get as many ‘stone’ as potential and the player which will acquire most of the stone or even all the stone at the end may exist as the winner. There are numbers of round that the player require to play, there are no time restrict but the participant may have to defeat the opponent by acquiring most or all the stone.

The tools
There are two potential tools that is employs to play congkak. In the last days, numbers of individuals can play congkak using only some stone as their tools. In this case, the player will need to dig hole on the ‘playing ground’ and they will use the hole as one more tools.

The other way or the one that many people do at present is that they may buy a congkak tools which is a piece of wood which have hole in it as the place to put the stone in. Nowadays people also didn’t use stone any longer and it has been replaced with very tiny & beautiful marble.

The pic in the image below is the tools which is use to play congkak.

Depending on the pic above, the big hole in every end of the tools is call ‘house’. There are two house in the congkak game which is go to each of the player. The house will locate in the left of the player. While the more hole is the ‘ground’ that the player could and will play. There can be two variation of the tools, one have simply five playground hole in each side and one more version have seven playground hole in both side. The marble or the stone that is need to for this game may depend on how many playground hole. In case there are seven hole, you will have seven marble in each hole. While if the hole is only five hole, we will need five marble in each hole.

How to play congkak
Congkak games requires the player to be alert of what the opponent do. He need to be precipitous in computing & have skillful strategy to earn this game.

The player will review to take marble from any hole in his side & he shall put one marble in each hole start out the next hole in the left. He require to put the marble in each hole including his ‘house hole’ with only except of opponent ‘house hole’. This is how a player can win, i.e. if he capable to ‘play’ congkak without any distruption or stop the ‘house hole’ may get more marble. Once the last marble that he hold fall into any hole, the player will take all the marble in that hole and continue to play. But, if the marble fall into empty hole, he need to stop & permit the opponent continue to play until the opposition too have this situation & stop. This is when the opponent take turn to play (after the other player stop). The player can choose to start (or select) marble from any hole ONLY from his side once he get the chance to play. Yet, if the last marble that he hold fall into his ‘house hole’, the player could have a 2nd opportunity to starting the game and the opposition shall merely require to wait.

Rule of congkak game
Here is certain rule of congkak game which the player must remember.

In the beginning , every player lead off together but later only one player at a time once one of the player have to stop (his last marble fall into empty hole)

After the end of one game which is after all marble is finish in every hole, both player shall start over using only the marble that he have accumulate during the game. For example if one player (just call player A) get only 30 pieces of marble - he shall have opportunity to fill up only few hole - in case 7 marble each hole - only 4 hole is filled up which the other hole is consider cancelled. While another player (player B) shall filled up every one that he have. & after that the game shall start again. The game could finally end only if one of the player surrender or one of the player get all the marble.

Some last word.
There are many version of Congkak games & each version may have their own rule which sometime only based on the player agreement (but it is not too differ from the above). This traditional games of congkak help the player how to calculate and make strategies. Actually there are many tips on how to play congkak and some experience player can even forecast which hole he should ‘start’ in different senario. Yet, all the tip on playing congkak is the story of another day… good luck and thanks for interesting in traditional games.