Two players

Play Ayo online with friends

Opon Ayo is the Yoruba seed-sowing game played on a wooden board of twelve pits, the one you watched the old men play for hours under the tree. Game Room uses the abapa rules, so it is a proper battle of counting and planning. Challenge your dad and see if he is as good as he always said.

How Opon Ayo plays on Game Room

1. Join the host's night from the link with just your name.
2. Game Room pairs players up. With an odd number, one player faces the computer.
3. The board has two rows of six pits, four seeds in each. Your row is the six pits on your side.
4. On your turn, tap one of your pits that has seeds. Game Room sows them one by one into the following pits around the board.
5. Captured seeds go into your store, and the board passes to your opponent.
6. You have 20 seconds per turn. If you run out, a move is made for you.

The rules

• There are 12 pits with 4 seeds each, 48 seeds in all.
• Pick up all the seeds from one of your pits and sow them one per pit around the board.
• A pit holding 12 or more seeds skips itself when sown, so it never gets a seed back on that move.
• If your last seed makes 2 or 3 in an opponent's pit, you capture it, plus any unbroken run of 2s and 3s just behind it on their side.
• A move that would capture every one of your opponent's seeds captures nothing instead.
• If your opponent has no seeds, you must give them some if you can. If you cannot, the game ends and each player keeps the seeds on their own side.
• Capture more than 24 seeds and you win.
• At time up, whoever has captured more wins. A level score is a draw.
• Points: a win earns 1,000, a draw 750 and a loss 500.

Tips to win

• Count before you sow. Work out exactly where your last seed will land.
• Look for pits on your opponent's side holding 1 or 2 seeds. Those are your targets.
• Build up a big pit on your side. A large sowing can sweep round the board and set up captures.
• Check what your opponent can capture after your move, not just what you capture.

Questions

More head to head

• Four in a RowDrop discs and line up four before your opponent does.
• DraughtsInternational draughts: compulsory captures and flying kings.