Fig. 14.
CHUBA.
Position of men at opening of the game.
The board is placed between the players as usual, with the longer sides next to them. Each one confines his playing to the two rows of pockets nearest him. The row close to his edge of the board is his outer row, while the other is his inner row.
Before beginning the game each player places a single counter in each of the pockets of his outer row and two counters in each pocket of his inner row, except that the pocket on his extreme left in the inner row is kept vacant and the one next to it holds but one man. The above diagram shows the arrangement of the board at the opening of the game. As indicated by the arrows, all moves in the inner row are from right to left, and those in the outer row from left to right. As the players face each other the moves in the two inner rows are necessarily in opposite directions.
The privilege of playing first in the first game is left to agreement or chance, not being regarded as of any consequence. In subsequent games the player who was victor in the last contest takes the lead.
The first player chooses any pocket in his inner row which contains more than one man from which to start his first move, and begins the game by picking up all the men in that pocket and dropping one of them in each of the consecutive pockets to his left until all the men in his hand have been distributed. If the last counter drops into a pocket that is occupied, the player continues the move by picking up all the men in that pocket, including the one dropped, and disposing of them as before. His move must continue in this same way until the last counter in his hand falls into an empty pocket, and the move may extend around the course, into the outer row, or even farther, as indicated by the arrows.
If this empty pocket into which the last man falls is in the inner row and has opposite it a pocket in the opponent’s inner row containing one or more men, the player captures these men and at once removes them from the board. And if there are one or more men in the corresponding opposite pocket of the opponent’s outer row, they must also be taken. Furthermore, he must select another pair of opposite pockets in his opponent’s rows from which to remove any men that they contain. In making this choice he is at liberty to pick out any pair of opposites, whether both are occupied or empty, or one is occupied and the other empty. The accompanying diagram will explain the meaning of this rule. [See [fig. 15].]
Fig. 15.
CHUBA.
Suppose the player B had just finished a move by dropping a “last man” in No. 1. He can capture all the men in 2 and 3 by his skill and also in 4 and 5 or from any other two opposite pockets of his opponent’s inner and outer rows. Had 2 been vacant, however, he could not have taken any men. Had 3 been vacant, he could have taken the men from 2 and those from 4 and 5. Had his last man fallen in the outer row, in 6 for example, the effect would have been of no avail in capturing anything, because the outer row is always noncombatant.