How to Play Guzhi — Graycells Games

Pallanguzhi in a minute.

Pallanguzhi (பல்லாங்குழி) is a traditional mancala game from Tamil Nadu in South India. Mancala games are “count and capture” games: you move seeds around a board of small pits and try to win more seeds than your opponent. Versions of Pallanguzhi are played across South India and Sri Lanka, and by Tamil families in Malaysia, Singapore and around the world, often on a folding wooden board with shells or tamarind seeds.

The name is usually explained as “many pits”: kuzhi means pit in Tamil, which is where Guzhi gets its name. Every family seems to play slightly different rules. This guide explains exactly the rules Guzhi uses, so if you learned a different version at home, skim the one-picture summary to see what differs.

New to mancala games altogether? Read top to bottom and try each practice board. It takes about ten minutes, and the first game after that will make sense.

The goal.

Two players share 84 seeds. You take turns moving them around the board, and seeds you capture go into your store. They never come out again.

Win by capturing more than half the seeds. The moment your store holds 43 or more at the end of a turn, you win straight away. If the board runs out first, the bigger store wins. A 42–42 finish is a draw.

The starting board with both stores highlighted: the opponent's store on the left and yours on the right, both empty.

The board.

The board has 14 pits in two rows of seven. At the start every pit holds 6 seeds (7 × 2 × 6 = 84).

Your row is the bottom row, nearest you. Those seven pits are yours.
Your opponent’s row is the top row.
Your store is the long pit on the right; your opponent’s store is on the left.
Seeds travel counter-clockwise: left to right along your row, then up and right to left along your opponent’s row, then back down to your row, round and round.

The starting board: 6 seeds in each of 14 pits. Your row runs along the bottom, left to right, towards your store on the right. The opponent's row runs along the top, right to left, towards their store on the left.

Stores are not part of the path. Seeds are never dropped into a store while sowing. After your last pit, the next pit is your opponent’s first pit. Seeds reach a store only by being captured.

The numbers in the pits count the seeds. In the animations, a small chip above a pit shows how many seeds are still in your hand.

Your turn, step by step.

A turn is short to describe but can run for a long time. It is made of five rules. Each one below has an animation you can play or step through, and most have a practice board where you can tap a pit yourself and read what happens at every step.

1 · Sowing

Choose one of your pits that has seeds and tap it. You pick up all of its seeds, then drop them one at a time into each following pit, counter-clockwise. You sow into your opponent’s pits too, and you don’t skip the pit you started from if you go all the way around (that takes 14 or more seeds).

Try it on the real starting board. Tap any pit in the bottom row:

2 · Keep going

This is the rule newcomers miss. When your last seed lands, look at the next pit after it:

If the next pit has seeds, pick them all up and keep sowing from there, one seed per pit, exactly as before.
Then look at the next pit again, and so on.

Your turn does not end when your hand is empty. It ends only when the pit after your last seed is empty (see Capture). One move can chain for many laps around the board, on both sides.

You can pick up seeds from your opponent’s pits this way. When you keep going, it doesn’t matter whose pit the next pit is.

3 · Capture

When your last seed lands and the next pit is empty, your sowing stops. Skip over that empty pit and capture every seed in the pit after it. They go into your store, and your turn ends.

Empty pit, then capture the one after it. You do not capture the empty pit (it has nothing in it). You capture the pit beyond the gap, and it can be on either side of the board, even one of your own pits.

Sometimes the pit after the gap is empty too. Then you capture nothing, and your turn still ends:

Practice: this board has several good captures. Count before you tap. Where will the last seed land, and what is in the next two pits?

4 · Pasu

Pasu can happen in the middle of sowing. Whenever a seed you drop makes a pit hold exactly 4 seeds, those 4 are captured on the spot, and then you carry on sowing.

The pit’s owner takes the pasu, not the player who is sowing. A pit in your row that reaches 4 gives you 4 seeds, even on your opponent’s turn. A pit in their row that reaches 4 gives them 4, even on your turn.

It happens only when a pit reaches exactly 4 as a seed is dropped. A pit that simply sits at 4 is not taken.
Watch pits holding 3. One more seed makes them pasu, for their owner.
If you are sowing a big handful, pasu can happen several times in one lap.

Practice: find a move that gives you a pasu, and notice the ones that feed your opponent.

5 · How the game ends

There are two ways the game ends:

Someone passes half. At the end of any turn, if a store holds 43 or more seeds, that player wins at once. The seeds still on the board simply stay there.
A player can’t move. If the player whose turn it is has no seeds anywhere in their row, the game ends. Every seed left on the board goes to the other player (the one who just moved), and the bigger store wins.

Practice: you are behind, 37 to 41. Can you find a move that empties your opponent’s row and wins?

On the practice boards you play both sides. After your move, tap one of the top-row pits to play your opponent’s reply.

A full turn, explained.

Here is one real turn from the middle of a game, with every rule at work: four laps of “keep going”, a pasu for each player, and a capture from the very pit the turn started from. Press Step and read each line. By the end, you’ll be able to follow any turn in the app.

Your turn in one picture.

Pick up all the seeds from one of your pits.
Drop them one per pit, counter-clockwise. Whenever a pit reaches exactly 4, its owner takes them.
Hand empty? Look at the next pit. Has seeds: pick them all up and go back to step 2.
Empty: capture the pit after the empty one. Your turn is over.
Store ≥ 43? That player wins. Next player has no seeds? All seeds left go to the player who just moved.

Blitz

Blitz: same rules, faster, with power-ups.

Blitz uses every Classic rule above, unchanged. On top of them it adds three things:

a clock: 5 seconds a turn, with a bank of saved time;
Ember: a meter that fills as you capture;
power-ups: one-turn tricks you earn from Ember.

It is played on the neon Ignite board.

The Blitz board in neon colours, 6 seeds in every pit.

The clock

Each turn you have a 5-second shot clock.
Move early and the whole seconds left over go into your bank, up to 15 seconds. Fractions are dropped: 2.6 seconds left saves 2.
If the shot clock runs out, your bank starts to drain while you think.
If the shot clock and the bank are both empty, a random move is played for you. It is always a plain pit move and never uses your power-up.

Ember

Every seed that goes into your store adds 1 to your Ember meter: captures and pasu (even pasu on your side during your opponent’s turn).
When the meter reaches 12 at the end of a turn, you earn a power-up, drawn at random from the 3 you chose before the game (your loadout). Any extra Ember carries over.
You can hold one power-up at a time. While you hold one, the meter keeps filling but stops at 12.

Using a power-up: at the start of your turn, before you choose a pit, use your power-up (for Brass Shield you also choose which of your pits to protect). Then tap the pit to sow. It lasts for that one turn, except the shield, which lasts until your next turn begins, and Time Squeeze, which works on your opponent’s next turn.

The four power-ups

Brass Shield

Choose one of your pits. Until your next turn starts, nothing can be taken from it: a capture that lands on it takes nothing and ends the turn, and if it reaches 4 there is no pasu (the seeds stay).

Best on your biggest pit when an empty pit sits just before it.

Reverse Sow

This turn your seeds travel clockwise. Everything else works the same way, backwards: keep going, the “next pit” check and the capture all follow the new direction.

Reach a capture that is behind you.

Time Squeeze

Your opponent’s next shot clock is only 2 seconds, and their bank is frozen for that turn: they can’t use it, and nothing is added to it.

Strongest when the board is complicated.

Pasu Surge

This turn, any pit that reaches 3 or 4 seeds is pasu, on either side, and you take them all, even from your opponent’s pits.

Look for a path through lots of 2s and 3s.

See three of them in action (Time Squeeze is shown after them):

Choosing a loadout

Before a Blitz game you pick 3 of the 4 power-ups. Each time your Ember fills, you get one of those three at random, so leave out the one you would use least.

Like to attack? Reverse Sow and Pasu Surge create captures that aren’t there otherwise.
Like to defend? Brass Shield protects a big pit your opponent is aiming at.
Fast player? Time Squeeze hurts most against someone who relies on their bank.

Classic vs Blitz.

	Classic	Blitz
Rules of sowing, keep going, capture, pasu, end	Yes	Yes, identical
Time per turn	As long as you like	5 s shot clock + a bank of up to 15 s
Running out of time	n/a	A random move is played for you
Ember and power-ups	No	Earn one every 12 seeds; hold one at a time
Board	Kolam-drawn wooden board	Neon Ignite board
Good for	Learning, and thinking games	Quick, lively games

Common mistakes.

“My turn ended when I ran out of seeds.” Not yet. Look at the pit after your last seed: if it has seeds, you pick them up and keep going.
“I captured the empty pit.” The empty pit is the signal. You capture the pit after it.
“Pasu only happens on my side.” It happens on both sides, on anyone’s turn, and the pit’s owner takes it. Dropping a seed into your opponent’s pit of 3 gives them 4 seeds.
“Seeds go into my store as I pass it.” Stores are not on the path. Seeds only get there by capture, pasu, or the final sweep.
“I can’t pick up from my opponent’s pits.” You can’t choose them at the start of your turn, but when you keep going, you pick up whatever is in the next pit, on either side.
“Having 4 seeds in a pit means pasu.” Only when a dropped seed makes it 4.
Blitz: “I tapped a pit, then tried to use my power-up.” Power-ups come first: use it, then tap the pit.
Blitz: “My bank didn’t grow.” Only whole seconds are banked, nothing is banked once the shot clock has run out, and nothing is banked on a squeezed turn.

Beginner strategy.

Count to the last seed. A pit with n seeds ends n pits along. Before you tap, check what is in the next two pits after that. Long chains are hard to predict even for experienced players, so start by getting the first lap right.
Spot the gap-then-full pattern. An empty pit followed by a full pit is a capture waiting to happen, for you or for your opponent next turn.
Watch the 3s. Your pits holding 3 are pasu chances for you. Their 3s are gifts you don’t want to hand over by dropping a seed in.
Big pits go a long way. A pit of 14 or more seeds laps the whole board and drops into itself again, which changes everything in its path. Save one for the right moment.
Think about the ending. When few seeds are left, try to leave your opponent with an empty row on their turn. Everything left on the board then goes to you.
Blitz: bank early. Make quick, obvious moves in the opening to build a bank for the tricky positions later.

Glossary.

Pit: One of the 14 small cups. Seven are yours (bottom row), seven are your opponent’s (top row).
Store: The long cup at each end, where captured seeds go. Yours is on the right.
Sowing: Dropping the seeds from your hand one at a time into the following pits, counter-clockwise.
Hand: The seeds you have picked up and not yet dropped.
Keep going (relay, lap): Picking up the next pit’s seeds after your last seed lands, and sowing on.
Capture: Taking the seeds from the pit after an empty pit, which ends your turn.
Pasu: When a dropped seed makes a pit hold exactly 4, its owner takes those 4 immediately.
Clinch: Reaching 43 seeds (more than half) at the end of a turn: an immediate win.
Sweep: At the end of the game, the seeds left on the board going to the player who just moved.
Shot clock: Blitz: the 5 seconds you get each turn.
Bank: Blitz: saved whole seconds (up to 15) used after the shot clock runs out.
Ember: Blitz: a meter that fills by one per seed you capture; at 12 you earn a power-up.
Loadout: Blitz: the 3 power-ups you choose before a game.
Power-up: Blitz: Brass Shield, Reverse Sow, Time Squeeze or Pasu Surge, used before you tap a pit.

Playing in the app.

Open Guzhi and choose Classic or Blitz.
Play the AI on Easy or Medium free, or Hard with Guzhi Pro.
Or play a friend over Game Center. Hosting needs Guzhi Pro; the friends you invite play free.
In Blitz you pick your three power-ups before the game starts.
A short version of this guide is in the app: tap How to Play on the home screen, or open it from the pause menu during a game.

Questions or ideas? Write to support@graycellsgames.com. Back to Guzhi

How to play Guzhi.