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SouthEast Asia traditional game : Congkak

Congkak is one of the notable traditional games in SouthEast Asia. There are many people that like this game If you would like to understand extra pertaining to congkak, this place exists the best place for you to study inside it.

There come couple of way to play congkak which the tool also is extremely basic. Previously & I believed that many of the individuals in the early day may take on congkak having only some stone as the tools.

What is congkak.
Congkak is a SouthEast Asia traditional games and also two or three other country in the region. It is a game in which it take two people to take on it. The propose of the game is to get as many ‘stone’ as imaginable & the player which might make virtually all of the stone or all the stone at the end could become the winner. There are numerous round that the player ought to play, there are no time limitation but the player might have to wipe out the opposition by having most or all the stone.

The tools
There are two potential tools that is uses to play congkak. In the early days, numerous individuals might play congkak by 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 numerous people do in todays world is that they will buy a congkak tools which is a piece of wood which have hole in it as the place to put the stone in. Now people also didn’t use stone any longer and it has been replaced with very tiny and beautiful marble.

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

Depending on the photograph above, the large hole in every end of the tools is call ‘house’. There are two house in the congkak game which is belong to each of the player. The house will locate in the left of the player. While the extra hole is the ‘ground’ that the player may & will play. There came two version of the tools, one have simply five playground hole in each side & one more variation have seven playground hole in both side. The marble or the stone that is require for this game may depend on how many playground hole. In case there are seven hole, you will need 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 must be precipitous in figuring and make good strategy to profit 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 have to put the marble in each hole including his ‘house hole’ with just 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’ shall get more marble. Whenever the last marble that he keep fall into any hole, the player could take all the marble in that hole & continue to play. Nevertheless, if the marble fall into empty hole, he ought to stop & let the opponent continue to play until the opponent also have this post & stop. This is when the opposition take turn to play (after the other player stop). The player can choose to start (or select) marble from whatever hole ONLY from his side when he get the chance to play. Still, if the last marble that he keep fall into his ‘house hole’, the player shall have an additional chance to start the game and the opposition can merely need to wait.

Rule of congkak game
Here is a select few rule of congkak game which the player should remember.

In the beginning , every player begin together but later simply one player at a time in case 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 could 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 will 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) can filled up every one that he have. & after that the game will start again. The game can 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 could 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 & some experience player can even forecast which hole he should ‘start’ in different senario. Eventually, all the tip on playing congkak is the story of another day… good luck & thanks for interesting in traditional games.