Togyzkumalak strategy

Count parity, not stones

A capture depends on one thing only: whether the opponent’s hole becomes even after your last stone. So before moving, look at their row rather than your own reserves and note the holes holding an odd number — those are the vulnerable ones.

The same arithmetic is your defence. An odd hole on your side is a target too, and sometimes the best move captures nothing and simply ruins your opponent’s counting: a sowing flips parity across whole stretches of your row at once.

Short moves are the main tool

When you sow more than one stone the first one stays in the original hole, so a long move almost never lets you land your last stone exactly where you want it. A hole with a single stone is the only precise instrument: that stone goes to the very next hole.

Hence a rule that changes how you play: holes holding one or two stones are valuable and should not be spent just to "do something". They are what you make tuzdyks and parity captures with.

Where to place your tuzdyk

You get one tuzdyk per game, and its worth is decided not by making it but by how many stones will pass through it afterwards. A badly placed tuzdyk earns three stones and is forgotten; a good one works for the rest of the game.

The direction of sowing hints at the choice. Your stones travel along your row and cross onto the opponent’s side at their first holes — which means your own long moves land there most often. A tuzdyk early in their row turns your sowings into deposits to your kazan instead of gifts to your opponent.

A tuzdyk late in their row lives differently: it is fed mostly by the opponent’s own moves. That can be very profitable, but it depends on how they are forced to play — on their decisions rather than yours.

Keep the restrictions in mind as well: the opponent’s ninth hole can never become a tuzdyk, and the hole mirroring their tuzdyk is off limits. If they placed theirs first, some of your plans are cancelled automatically.

Playing for atsyrau

Atsyrau is not only an accident, it is also a technique. If your opponent is down to a few stones while your row is full, emptying their side ends the game and sweeps all of your stones into your kazan in one motion.

It cuts both ways. Check the score before forcing it: if you are behind, ending the game early simply locks in the loss. Sometimes the right move is the opposite — feed your opponent stones so the game continues and you get time to catch up.

The race is to 82, not to an empty board

The game ends the moment a kazan holds 82 stones, and the board may still be full at that point. Tracking the current score matters more than the elegance of the position: at 78 stones the task narrows to "find an even hole worth four".

An 81:81 split is a draw, and in close games it is worth playing for deliberately: sharing the stones evenly is sometimes safer than risking the opponent’s tuzdyk.

The clock: blitz versus rapid

Online games use Fischer timing: a bank per player plus an increment for every move made. In blitz the winner is not only the better counter but also the player who does not spend the bank on obvious moves.

This game adds a wrinkle of its own: a long sowing physically takes time — the animation drops the stones one by one, and that time is charged to the player who moved, not to the one watching. In a short time control a run of long moves eats the clock noticeably, which is one more reason to keep short holes in reserve.

Frequently asked questions