Fanorona

Madagascar. Its full name is fanoron-tsivy, and it's played on nine by five points.

Who moves first?

You don't need an account or an email, and there's nothing to install. You'll get a link to send to the person you want to play.

How to play

The board

The board has forty-five points, nine across and five down, joined by lines.
Each player has twenty-two stones, which fill every point except the one in the middle.

Moving

A stone moves one step along a line, onto the empty point next to it.
The whole opening is played around that single empty point.

Capturing

You capture by stepping towards a line of enemy stones, or by stepping directly away from one.
The whole unbroken line of enemy stones in that direction is taken, however long it is.
One step can be an approach and a withdrawal at the same time. When it is, you choose which line to take. You can never take both.

When you have to capture

If any capture is available you have to take it. A quiet move is only legal when nothing at all can be taken.
After capturing you may capture again with the same stone, but you are free to stop after any number.
Within one turn you may not step twice in a row in the same direction. You also may not arrive at the same point twice, and that includes the point you started from.

Winning

You win by taking all of your opponent's stones.
If fifty half-moves pass with nothing captured, the game is a draw. That's twenty-five turns each.

Which rules do we use?

We play fanoron-tsivy, on the nine-column board, with the rules the game's solvers use.

Fanorona is one of the few traditional games on this site with a settled rulebook. It was weakly solved in 2008. With best play on both sides, it's a draw. We follow the rules that were published with that work.

There are smaller versions of the board, and one source adds a rule we don't use.

The board: Ours is nine columns by five. Fanoron-dimy is played on five columns and fanoron-telo on three, and they're different games.
A limit on the first move: One source says you may make only a single capture on your first move. Neither the published rulebook nor any solver has this rule, and it would change the opening, so we don't use it.

We don't use the vela either. It's a handicap the loser may ask for in a return match, and here you play single games, not a series.

Our rules follow the statement the ICGA published at icga.org.