Tsoro Yematatu

Tsoro Yematatu is played on a seven-point triangular board with five drawn lines. You play the black seeds; the AI plays white. Each side has three seeds, and Black moves first.

1. Placement phase: take turns dropping one seed on any empty point until all six are down.
2. Movement phase: slide a seed to an adjacent empty point along a line — or jump over a neighbouring seed (yours or your opponent's) to the empty point directly beyond. Jumps do not capture.
3. Winning: line up three of your own seeds on one of the five drawn lines — you can win during placement or movement.
4. If neither side can force three in a row, the game is a draw.

Full rules guide & cultural history →

Among the Shona of Zimbabwe, tsoro is a general name for a whole family of traditional board games — from mancala-style sowing games to alignment and draughts-like games — and yematatu means "of three," for the three seeds each player commands. The small game is thus the three-in-a-row member of that family.

Tsoro games were woven into everyday Shona social life — used to teach children counting and strategy, to pass the time, and at times by adults to compete and settle scores. The boards were often scratched into the earth and played with seeds or pebbles.

Like many small traditional games, Tsoro Yematatu's written rule record is thin and rests largely on oral transmission and a handful of secondary write-ups. The rules used here are a faithful reconstruction of the most-cited version (jumping allowed at any time; a line may be completed during placement).