Fanorona
Fanoron-tsivy
The full game: five rows of nine points, twenty-two pieces a side.
What is different here
If you already play {other}, these are the rules you have to unlearn.
- The standard rules described above, and the only fanorona variant that is rated here.
- The vela handicap can be switched on as an option, which makes the game unrated.
Vela
Traditionally, a player who loses is entitled to a vela: a handicap game in which the winner may not capture at all until they have lost seventeen pieces. It is a way of letting the weaker player back into the contest without pretending the first game did not happen.
Switch it on and the previous winner plays quiet moves only until the count is met, then the game becomes normal. It is unrated, because a handicap game is not measuring the same thing.
Standard Malagasy rules as codified by the Fanorona federation: 5x9 lattice, middle row w b w b . w b w b as White reads it, approach and withdrawal captures of whole contiguous lines, chains that may not revisit a point or repeat a direction, stopping optional, any capture mandatory, paika only without captures, 50 moves without capture is a draw. Vela is exposed as a flag (unrated): the previous winner may not capture until 17 pieces are lost.
Shared by every {game} code
The board and the lines
The full game, fanoron-tsivy, uses five rows of nine points. Lines join every point to its orthogonal neighbours, and diagonals run through every second point, so points alternate between having eight neighbours and four. A piece may only move along a line that exists.
Each player has twenty-two pieces. They fill the two rows nearest them, and the middle row alternates between the two colours with the central point left empty.
- tsivy: five by nine, twenty-two pieces each. The standard game.
- dimy: five by five, twelve pieces each. The same rules on a smaller board.
- telo: three by three, three pieces each, no captures at all. A line-making game for children and for teaching the lattice.
Moving
A piece moves one step along a line to an adjacent empty point. That is the only way anything moves; there is no sliding and no jumping.
A move that captures nothing is called a paika, and you may only play one when no capture at all is available to you.
Approach and withdrawal
To capture by approach, move a piece one step so that it lands adjacent to an enemy piece, continuing in the direction it moved. That piece is captured, and so is every enemy piece directly behind it in the same line, until the line is broken by an empty point or one of your own pieces.
To capture by withdrawal, move a piece one step directly away from an enemy piece that was adjacent to it. That piece and every enemy behind it in that line are captured in the same way.
A single step can offer both at once, when there are enemy pieces on both sides of the line you are moving along. When that happens you choose which one to take; you never get both.
Continuing a capture
After a capture the same piece may move again and capture again, as many times as it can. Two restrictions keep this from running forever: it may not return to any point it has already stood on this turn, and it may not move twice in a row in the same direction.
Stopping is allowed at any point once you have captured at least once. This is a real decision, not a formality, because carrying on can walk your piece into a position where it is captured next turn.
Capturing itself is compulsory, but only in the sense that you must capture something. Unlike international draughts there is no requirement to take the most.
Winning
You win by capturing every enemy piece. A player with no legal move loses.
A game with no capture for fifty moves is a draw, as is a threefold repetition. Draws are rarer than in draughts because the captures are so large.
Notation
Columns are lettered a to i and rows numbered 1 to 5, so the centre of the full board is e3. A move is written from-to, with A or W appended for an approach or a withdrawal: e3-d3A. A chain simply continues: e3-d3A-c4W.