What is "kalah"

Kalah, also called Kalaha or Mancala, is a game in the mancala family imported in the United States by William Julius Champion, Jr. in 1940. This game favors the starting player, who will always win the three-seed to six-seed versions with perfect play. This game is sometimes also called "Kalahari", possibly by false etymology from the Kalahari desert in Namibia.

As the most popular and commercially available variant of mancala in the West, Kalah is also sometimes referred to as Warri or Awari, although those names more properly refer to the game Oware.