Talk:Kalah

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Correct description

A correct description with sample games, problems, detailed history and a longer bibliography can be found at http://mancala.wikia.com/wiki/Kalah ---84.175.151.175 (talk) 08:04, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled

Added info on computer analysis of Kalah(6/6). This is one of my first edits and I can't seem to get the tables formatted correctly. I'll be back later to fix the tables after I figure out how. MarkR27 — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkR27 (talk • contribs) 22:14, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification needed. The rules currently aren't clear as to: (a) when the games ends (presumably when either player clears their side of seeds), and (b) if PlayerA has cleared his side and the game is ended, then what happen to PlayerB's seeds still on-the-board (ie, are those seeds moved to PlayerB's pit and along with those that he's captured?

First player advantage? Can someone explain the reason the first player to move has such a great advantage over other, more traditional Mancala games? Also, if someone can do a mathematical explaination of the game -- similar to the math behind the article Go, I think the community would appreciate it. Thanks. ~~Stexe

Reply to the above statements

The game ends as soon as one row is emptied. (standard rules by Champion)
The remaining seeds are moved to the store of the player who owns their pits.
Can we expect to have the standard game analyzed too? The empty capture variant is non-standard, less deep and not much played.
It is not correct that it is unusual for traditional mancala games to not have a significant first-move advandtage. Dakon/Sungka/Congka is even a win in the first ply of the game. Toguz Kumalak also has a first move advantage. In Kalah (6,6) the first player can capture two seeds, while the second player can capture only one seed. In addition, the first player got the initiative and can maximize this advantage in the following moves.- 84.175.153.12 (talk) 07:27, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kalah(6,6) with the empty capture rule is only a win by 2 for the first player, which is not much of an advantage considering how long the game is. I doubt that a human moving first could secure a win against my program. Kalah(6,6) is just too complex (even though I have posted 10 ply or so of perfect play). If anyone would like to try, I'd be glad to play. It would be an interesting experiment! Also, analysis of the standard rule game has been posted for Kalah(6,4) and Kalah(6,5). I'm still working on Kalah(6,6) with the standard rules. So far, I've proven that it is a win by at least 4 for the first player. A full proof like I did for the empty capture variant might not be possible with my current hardware (32GB RAM). With an upgrade to 64GB RAM, I could add the 35 and 36-seed endgame databases, which should make it solvable. - Mark

In what year did Willie finalize the rules that are more or less the same as we know today?--Sonjaaa 15:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weblinks

I removed the last weblink as it 404'ed. Regarding the mathematical explanation: I haven't found any deeper research in Kalah so it would be hard to back anything up without good sources. 78.53.102.138 (talk) 08:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]