Bagh Chal
Overview
Bagh Chal (meaning "Moving Tigers") is a two-player ancient board game that originates in Nepal.  This game is asymmetric, i.e. players have different goals.

Board

Bagh-Chal is played on a board with a grid of 25 points connected with lines indicating valid movements (see picture below).

There are two players: Tigers and Goats.  Initially 20 goats are kept off the board and four tigers are placed in the four corners of the board:

 

Objective
The objectives are different for each of the players:
  • Tigers (dark orange pieces) win the game if they capture five goats.
  • Goats (light gray pieces) win the game if they surround the four tigers so any of them has no legal moves.

Play

Players move alternately, starting from the player controlling the Goats.

The game sequence for the Goats is divided into two phases:

  1. Until all 20 goats are placed on the board, the only possible move is to place one of them in any of the free points on the board.
  2. After all the goats have been placed on the board they can be moved from their position to an adjacent point along any drawn line.  Please note that there are pairs of points not connected with a line.

Tigers can move in the following manner during the whole game:

  1. Like Goats they can be moved from their position to an adjacent point along any drawn line.
  2. They can also capture a single goat  placed on an adjacent point if there is a line connecting a tiger and the goat and the next point in the same direction is empty.  The capture is made by jumping over the adjacent goat to the empty point.  The captured goat is removed from the board.  The capture is not mandatory.

There is an additional rule preventing an endless game:

  • When all the goats have been placed on the board, it is not allowed to perform a move that repeats any previous positions that occured during the game.

External Links