How to Play Tsoro

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Tsoro is a traditional seed-and-holes strategy game played between two players on a board drilled or carved with a grid of small pits. Players take turns moving their stones or seeds across the board, aiming to capture the opponent's pieces by landing on or passing through their positions. The game rewards forward planning and patience over speed.

Its appeal lies in how quickly it can be learned and how long it takes to genuinely master. Tsoro is commonly played outdoors on carved wooden boards, though games are frequently started on bare ground with holes scooped by hand and pebbles used as pieces. That simplicity is a large part of why the game remains popular across generations.

A little history

Tsoro is associated with Zimbabwe and neighbouring southern African regions, where it has been documented as a traditional pastime among Shona-speaking communities. Its origins are unclear and predate written records in the region. The name and its local rule variants have been recorded by anthropologists and games researchers from the twentieth century onward, and it is recognised as part of the broader family of African count-and-capture games, though the exact relationship to other mancala-type games in the family is not firmly established in the historical record.

Setting up

1. Place the board flat between both players so each faces one of the longer sides.
2. Each player takes 12 pieces of their own colour.
3. Players fill their own half of the board's outer rows with their pieces, leaving the centre holes empty. On a 5x5 board this typically means the two rows nearest each player; confirm the exact starting rows to match your board size before play begins.
4. Decide who moves first, traditionally by lot or mutual agreement.

How to play

1. Players alternate turns throughout the game. The player who goes first is set before play begins and does not change.
2. On your turn you must move one of your pieces. A piece moves one step at a time to an adjacent hole. Adjacency includes horizontal, vertical, and diagonal neighbours depending on the rule set in use; agree which before starting. The most common traditional version allows orthogonal moves only (up, down, left, right).
3. A piece may not move to a hole already occupied by one of your own pieces.
4. Capturing: if you move your piece into a hole occupied by one of your opponent's pieces, that opponent piece is removed from the board and set aside. The capturing piece stays in the hole it moved into.
5. A player must capture if a capture is available on their turn. If multiple captures are available, the player chooses which one to take.
6. There is no multi-jump chain capturing in the standard game. Each turn consists of exactly one move, which may or may not result in a single capture.
7. If a player has no legal move on their turn, that player passes. If both players have no legal move consecutively, the game ends immediately.
8. Play continues until one player has no pieces remaining on the board, or until no legal moves exist for either player.

Winning and scoring

The player who captures all of their opponent's pieces wins the game outright. If the game ends because neither player can move, the player with more pieces remaining on the board wins. If both players have the same number of pieces when no moves are possible, the game is declared a draw. There is no points-based scoring in the standard game; victory is simply last player with pieces able to move, or the player with the greater count at deadlock.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns whether diagonal moves are permitted. Some communities play strictly orthogonal; others allow all eight directions. Settle this before the first move and do not change the rule mid-game. A related dispute is whether a piece that reaches the opponent's back row gains any special status such as promotion. In traditional Tsoro there is no promotion rule, but house rules vary; state your position clearly before play.

The compulsory-capture rule is the one most often forgotten. If a legal capture is available anywhere on the board, you must take it. If a player moves without capturing when a capture was possible, the standard ruling is to require the player to undo the move and make a capturing move instead. The piece that made the illegal move must be the one corrected, not a different piece. Once a capturing move has been accepted by the opponent and play has moved on, the error cannot be retrospectively corrected.

How to win more often

• Control the centre holes early. Pieces in the centre have more movement options and can threaten a larger area of the board than pieces pressed to the edges.
• Avoid leaving isolated pieces. A lone piece with no friendly neighbours nearby is easy to pick off; keep your forces in loose clusters so pieces can protect one another.
• Count the forced captures. Because you must take a capture if one exists, a skilled opponent will set traps that force you into a bad position after you capture. Look two moves ahead before grabbing every piece you can.
• Restrict your opponent's mobility before you go for captures. Pushing your opponent's pieces into corners limits their options and can create a position where they have no legal move at all.
• When ahead in piece count, trade pieces. Exchanging equal numbers of pieces accelerates your opponent's path to zero while you still have pieces in reserve.

Variations

Diagonal Movement

In this widely played variant, pieces may move to any of the eight surrounding holes rather than the four orthogonal ones only. This significantly increases the pace of play and the number of captures available on any given turn. The compulsory-capture rule still applies. Diagonal movement is common in urban play and is sometimes treated as the default by players who learned the game informally.

Multiple Jumps

Some regional versions allow a piece that has just made a capture to continue moving and capturing in the same turn, provided each subsequent landing hole is occupied by an opponent piece. This chain-capture rule makes single turns far more consequential and shortens the overall game. Agree before play whether a chain must continue if further captures are available, or whether stopping after the first capture remains an option.

Larger Board

Tsoro can be played on boards larger than the standard 5x5 layout. A 6x6 or even 8x8 grid is used in some communities, with each player receiving proportionally more pieces to fill their starting rows. The larger board increases the strategic depth and game length considerably and is more suitable for experienced players comfortable with planning several moves ahead.

No Compulsory Capture

A simpler version, often used when teaching younger children, removes the compulsory-capture rule entirely. Players may move to any legal empty or opponent-occupied square of their choice, whether or not a capture is available. This reduces the tactical punishment for missed captures but also removes a significant layer of strategy. It is a reasonable introductory format before switching to the standard rules.

Tsoro: frequently asked questions