What is "tsoro"

Tsoro is an ancient two-player mathematical strategy board game that has been played for over a thousand years. It has its roots in Zimbabwe and was first described in literature by J. B. Matthews in 1964. Tsoro belongs to the same class of African strategy board games collectively called Mancala, such as Oware, Bao, and Kalah.

Tsoro was played by warriors to improve their enemy capturing and raiding strategies in war situations. It was also used to teach young boys and girls how to count. Kings and chiefs often settled disputes by playing Tsoro. Today it is frequently played during leisure times and sometimes competitively. In its original form, the game was played by digging 4 rows and 21 columns of small holes in the ground which were then populated with a pre-determined amount of pebbles or seeds. Each of the two players occupy two rows of holes.

Tsoro has countless variations in terms of the number of holes in each row and the number of seeds in each hole. In the most common implementation in Zimbabwe, the game is played on a board that has 4 rows with each row containing 7 holes. At the start of the game, all holes are filled with the same number of seeds. The players sit face to face and each player occupies the two rows nearest to them.

Below is a representation of a 10 hole Tsoro board with 2 seeds in each hole at the beginning of a game.

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2