Ô Ăn Quan

Ô Ăn Quan is played on a board with 10 small pits and 2 large quan pits (one on each end). Each small pit starts with 5 seeds. Player 1 controls the bottom row; Player 2 the top.

1. Click any of your pits (bottom row if you are Player 1, top row if Player 2) to pick up all seeds from that pit.
2. Seeds are distributed one by one counterclockwise into every subsequent pit — including your opponent's pits and both quan pits. This is normal: in all mancala games, seeds travel the full circuit regardless of which player owns each pit.
3. Continue sowing: if the last seed lands in a non-empty pit, pick up all seeds there and keep going.
4. Capture: if the last seed lands in an empty pit and the very next pit (CCW) has seeds, capture those seeds into your quan.
5. If that next pit is also empty, your turn simply ends with no capture.
6. The game ends when all 10 small pits on one side are empty. Each player then claims the seeds left on their own side. Most seeds in quan wins.

Ô Ăn Quan — literally "mandarin's squares" — is one of Vietnam's most beloved traditional children's games, played across the country for centuries. The game is typically drawn directly on the ground or on a flat stone, using pebbles or seeds as pieces.

It belongs to the global mancala family of games, found across Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East — a testament to shared human ingenuity across cultures that never had contact with each other. The game develops strategic thinking, counting skills, and spatial reasoning, which is why it has long been used as both entertainment and informal education for Vietnamese children.

For many who grew up in Vietnam, the image of children crouched around a chalk board on the schoolyard playing Ô Ăn Quan is one of the most enduring memories of childhood. The game is simple enough for young children to grasp but deep enough for adults to play seriously for decades.