Yote Board Game
You would be forgiven when first playing the African board game of Yote that it's somewhat like checkers. Well, in some regards it is but it's also more complex and more strategic. Firstly a bit of history. Yote is a traditional game played across West Africa whose origins are lost in antiquity but first became known in the west towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Although nowadays played on a board, it is believed that originally it was played by scooping holes out of the sand and using pebbles and pieces of stick for pieces although shells and large seeds were also used. The main difference between Yote and checkers is that whilst each player has twelve pieces or 'elephants' the board is blank at the beginning of each game.
Yote is played by two people on a board of five rows of six squares and each player on his or her turn must place a piece on any vacant square of the board then, in subsequent turns, a player may opt to place another piece if they have any left, or instead to move a piece already on the board.
A piece can move one square horizontally or vertically, to an adjacent square, which must be empty (there are no diagonal moves in this game.) An enemy piece is captured by jumping over it and landing on the square beyond, which must be vacant but, and this is the major difference between checkers and Yote, having captured a piece, the player then selects a second enemy piece and removes it from the board. The player who captures all the opponent's pieces is the winner. The game can end in a draw if both players are left with three or fewer pieces.
You might find it useful to have a look at the video (left) which explains how to play Yote in more detail. |
