Surakarta

Surakarta is a classic strategy board game that is believed to be developed in central Java.

Surakarta — Classic Strategy Board Game, now on Google Play

Surakarta is just a little different than traditional games — it features those loops using which players capture their opponent’s dear pebbles. And why not? It is their goal to snatch all their opponent’s pebbles and win the game.

Setup

Surakarta is played on a 6x6 grid with eight looping circuits coming out of it: four outer loops and four inner loops. Pebbles are placed on the intersections of the grid as shown below:

Initial Layout

Moves

Each player alternatively exercise their turns — but choose between two types of moves, a simple or capturing move.

A player can always make a simple move, by placing any one of pebbles one step in any direction, into an empty intersection. Although moving diagonally is restricted in special variants of Surakarta, it is generally allowed in main-line matches.

Red has simple-moved his pebble; now, black has three choices if he moves the selected pebble.

The special capturing move is allowed in special conditions: when you can loop through a circuit without jumping over your own pebbles, and land on an enemy pebble. You have to loop one or more times before capturing.

In this position, the red pebble can capture a black pebble by moving through the highlighted orange path.

In some variants of Surakarta, stopping before actually capturing the opponent’s pebble is also accepted.

Strategic Play

Pebbles occupying intersections of two lines having the same color are always more powerful.

In this position, black has total control over the blue band, while red has total control over the green bands. However, on carefully analyzing this position, you will find that red is stuck. This is because if red makes a move, it will always land into the green-blue intersection, which black will be able capture immediately.

In the position above, there are no obstacles between the pebbles and the loops. This allows them to capture any piece in the same row or column.

As strong as those pebbles are, cornered pebbles are just as useless. Once trapped, they cannot be used without sacrificing. Initially, both players have two pebbles placed on the corners (yellow-yellow intersections). In the end game, however, you shouldn’t keep any pebble in the corner.

The black pebble has trapped the cornered red pebble. If the red pebble moves, it will be on the blue band, which black can capture by moving left, looping and coming down.

Draws

A draw is generally accepted when the same position is repeated three times, or no capture occurs after 50 moves, or when both players agree.

But a draw can be prevented, if one player has more pebbles than the other. For example, see the position below:

The black pebble controls the whole blue band. If the red pebble comes into the blue band to capture the black pebble, it will be captured first. If red doesn’t capture, however, then the game will result in a draw. In order to win, red will have to sacrifice one of its pebbles.

The black pebble controls the blue lines, and red cannot capture it without sacrificing a pebble first. So, red could place its pebble on a green-blue intersection, and get captured there. Since red controls the green lines, it will then be able to capture black in its new position.

Black moves right, loops, comes down and captures red in the blue-green intersection. Later, red also moves right, loops, goes up, loops, goes left and captures the black pebble and wins.

Opportunities

Surakarta is played in computer Olympiads. You can learn more by playing it, by installing the app from Google Play.