“Shall I make myself stronger
or my opponent weaker?” This is the tricky question you’ll have to ask
yourself on each of your turns.
Contents
- 1 game board
- 30 white pieces: 6 Tzaars, 9 Tzarras and 15 Totts
- 30 black pieces: 6 Tzaars, 9 Tzarras and 15 Totts
- 1 rulebook
A. Preparation
1. Place the board between the players so that
the long side runs from one player to the other.
2. Put all the pieces randomly on the board. The
intersections constitute the play area and are henceforth referred to
as spaces. When all 60 pieces are on the board, all spaces will be
occupied.
3.
Draw lots for your color. White begins.
Note: If you do not
like to begin with a random start position, see points G. and H. below.
B. Goal
There
are two ways to win:
1. Players have 3 types of pieces: Tzaars,
Tzarras and Totts. These 3 types represent a trinity: they cannot exist
without each other. You must keep at least one piece of each type on
the board at all times. In other words, the first way to win is to make
your opponent run out of either Tzaars, Tzarras or Totts.
2. Each turn, players are obligated to capture
at least one opponent’s piece. So the second way to win is to put your
opponent in a position where he cannot capture any of your remaining
pieces on the board.
C. The start: 1 move
To begin the game, White
makes one move. White must use this move to make a capture. The rules
for capturing are very simple: pick one of your pieces (of any type)
and move it to an adjacent space with an opponent’s piece (of any
type). Take the opponent’s piece from the board and put your piece in
that space. The opponent’s piece goes out of the game.
D. The game: 2 moves per turn
After White has started the game with only one
move, players always have two moves per turn.
THE FIRST MOVE OF
A TURN
1. The first
move is always a “forced capture”. You must capture! You can capture a
piece in an adjacent space, but during the course of the game more and
more spaces will become vacant. You may also capture by moving a piece
in a straight line over any number of vacant spaces, to the first space
occupied by an oppo-nent’s piece. Take the opponent’s piece from the
board and put your piece in that space. (See diagram 2.) The opponent’s
piece goes out of the game.
2. As far as
capturing goes, there’s no difference between Tzaars, Tzarras and
Totts. Each piece can capture any other piece, as long as the piece is
at least equally strong as the piece it wants to capture.
3. The
strength of a piece is not determined by its type, but by its height.
In the beginning there are only single pieces, which means that all
pieces on the board are equally strong. But you can make your pieces
stronger during the game by stacking them on top of each other. A stack
of two pieces can capture any single piece and any two-piece stack of
the opposite color; a stack of three pieces can capture any single
piece, any two-piece stack, and any three-piece stack of the opposite
color, and so on.
4. All pieces
on the board move the same way. A single piece is as movable as a stack
of two, three or more pieces.
Diagram
2: the arrows indicate which black pieces can be captured by the white
Tzaar.
THE SECOND MOVE OF A TURN
For the second move, you must choose between 3 possibilities: a) make a second capture, b) make one of your pieces (or
stacks) stronger, or c)
pass.
a) A second
capture
To make a second capture, the rules are the same as for the capture
with your first move.
2. You may make the second capture with the same
piece (or stack) that made the first capture, or with a different piece
(or stack).
b) Making a
piece stronger
1. To make a piece (or stack) stronger, you just have to jump with it
on top of another piece (or stack) of your color. You may jump on one
of your pieces (or stacks) in an adjacent space or in a space that you
can reach by moving in a straight line over any number of vacant
spaces. So to make a piece stronger, you have exactly the same movement
possibilities as for capturing.
2. There is no limit to the number of pieces that can be in a stack. No
matter how high, a stack is always considered as “one entity.” It must
always be moved as a whole and captured as a whole.
3. Any of your pieces or stacks can jump on any of your other pieces or
stacks. For example, a single Tzaar can jump onto a stack with a Tott
on top and vice versa. (See diagram 3 below.)
4. Only the top piece of a stack counts for the different types of
pieces in play. For example, if you put a Tott on top of a Tzaar, the
stack counts only as a Tott (although the Tzaar is still in play as
part of the stack).
Diagram
3: a single piece can jump onto a stack (of any height) and vice versa!
Also, stacks can jump on top of each other.
c) Pass
You are not obligated to use your second move. If you decide to pass,
you just tell your opponent that it is his turn again.
Note: you can never
pass the first move (i.e. the forced capture) of a turn!
E. For the sake of clarity
1. A
piece (or stack) can never be moved to an empty space. Once a space is
empty, it remains empty until the end of the game.
2. A piece
(or stack) can never jump over one or more other pieces (or stacks). It
can only be moved over vacant spaces.
3. The board
has no central space. Pieces may not be moved across the center.
4. Stacks can
only consist of pieces of one and the same color.
5. You must
respect the order of moves: always the forced capture first, then a
choice between three possibilities for the second move.
F. End of the game
A player wins the game either when he succeeds
in capturing the last piece of one of the three types of the opponent’s
pieces, or when he puts his opponent in a position where he cannot use
his first move to make the forced capture.
Reminder:
only single pieces and the pieces on top of stacks count when checking
for the presence of the three types of pieces. The pieces in the stacks
do not count.
G. Starting position
If you do not like random start positions, put
the pieces on the board according to the following diagram:
Diagram 4:
Fixed start position.
H. Tournament version
When playing the tournament version, the game
begins with an empty board. The players take turns putting one of their
pieces after another on the board. The pieces may be placed on the
board in any order and it is allowed to switch from one type of piece
to another as often as you want.
When all pieces are on the board, all spaces will be occupied and the
game starts according the rules described above.
Have fun!
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