Togyzkumalak glossary

Togyzkumalak

The name of the game: togyz means "nine", kumalak means "pebble" — nine holes per player, nine stones in each. In Kyrgyzstan the same game is called Toguz Korgool; in the wider classification of board games it is one of the mancalas.

Kumalak

A playing stone. In a traditional set these are rounded pebbles or dried sheep droppings — hence the word. A game uses 162 of them, and that count never changes.

Otau

A hole on the board; literally a "dwelling", the yurt of a newly married couple. There are 18 — nine yours and nine your opponent’s. You may only sow from your own and only capture from theirs.

Kazan

The store holding captured stones, one per player; literally a cauldron. Stones that reach a kazan leave the game and are never sown again. Eighty-two stones in your kazan win the game.

Tuzdyk

A hole on your opponent’s side in which your last stone made exactly three stones. It becomes yours permanently: everything that lands there afterwards goes straight into your kazan. The word literally means "salty place" — the same one used for brine and gravy.

Each player may create only one per game; it can never be the opponent’s ninth hole, and it cannot mirror the opponent’s tuzdyk. It is the strongest mechanic in the game.

Atsyrau

The position where, after a move, the opponent has no stones left and nothing to sow. The player who moved sweeps their remaining stones into their kazan and the game ends at once. The winner is still decided by the stone count.

Sowing

The move itself: the stones of a chosen hole are dropped one by one counterclockwise. If there is more than one stone, the first stays in the original hole — the whole tactic of short moves rests on this rule.

Mancala

The umbrella name for the "sow and capture" family of games played from West Africa to Southeast Asia: mancala, oware, congklak, togyzkumalak. The core idea is shared, the rules are not — the tuzdyk, for instance, exists only in Togyzkumalak.