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How to play ayo

Ayo Olopon rules, as played in the Surulere Games Lounge. Updated 18 October 2026.

Ayo, or Ayo Olopon, is the Yoruba seed game: two players, a wooden board with two rows of six pits, and 48 seeds. It belongs to the mancala family, cousins of Oware in Ghana. You take turns sowing seeds round the board and capturing your opponent's. Capture more than half the seeds, 25 or more, and you win.

The board

The board has two rows of six pits. The row nearest you is yours, and the row across is your opponent's. At the start every pit holds four seeds: 48 in all. There's a store at each end for the seeds each player captures. In Lagos Hotel yours is on your right.

Draw lots to decide who starts. Then you take turns, one move each.

Sowing

1. Pick one of your own pits that has seeds in it.
2. Take out all its seeds and drop them one by one into the pits that follow, going anticlockwise: to your right along your row, round the end, then along your opponent's row and back to your side.
3. If a pit holds 12 or more seeds, sowing goes all the way round the board. Skip the pit you started from: it stays empty.

Where your last seed lands is what matters. Count before you play: a pit with 3 seeds ends 3 pits along.

Capturing

If your last seed lands in a pit on your opponent's side and makes it hold exactly 2 or 3 seeds, you capture those seeds into your store.

Then look at the pit just before it, the one you sowed into before the last. If it's also on your opponent's side and holds 2 or 3, capture that too. Keep going back, pit by pit, until you reach a pit that doesn't hold 2 or 3, or you get back to your own side.

Seeds in your own row are never captured by your own move, and a last seed that makes a pit hold 1, 4 or more captures nothing.

No grand slam

A move that would capture every one of your opponent's seeds captures nothing at all. You can still make the move: the seeds are sown as usual and simply stay where they land.

Feeding your opponent

If your opponent has no seeds left on their side, you must make a move that gives them some, if any move can. You can't leave them starving when you're able to feed them.

Winning and ending

• Capture more than 24 seeds and you win. With 48 seeds on the board, 25 is more than half, so nobody can catch you.
• If you both end on 24, it's a draw.
• When nobody can move, or nothing happens: if the player whose turn it is has no move they're allowed to make, or 60 moves go by with no capture, the game ends. Each player adds the seeds still on their own side to their store, and whoever has more wins.

Tips to win

• Count every move. The number of seeds in a pit tells you exactly where the last one lands. Good ayo players count before they touch anything.
• Hunt the 1s and 2s. An opponent's pit holding 1 or 2 seeds is a target: land your last seed there and it becomes a 2 or a 3.
• Guard your own small pits. Your pits with 1 or 2 seeds are targets too. Before you play, check which of them your opponent can reach.
• Look for chains. The best captures take several pits in a row. A row of 1s and 2s on your opponent's side can all fall in one move.
• Build a big pit. A pit with 12 or more seeds goes all the way round, and can land a capture where your opponent least expects it.
• Keep seeds at home late on. If the game stalls, the seeds on your side count for you.

Ayo in Lagos Hotel

• Tap a glowing pit. Your pits that can be played light up, and the hotel sows the seeds for you. You can't make an illegal move by mistake.
• Play with people or the house. The Surulere Games Lounge has three ayo tables. Sit down and invite whoever is in the room, or play Baba Ayo, the house champion.
• Play at home. Buy an ayo board from the furniture shop, put it in your apartment and play with your visitors.
• Get on the champions board. Wins against real people count towards today's champions on the lounge wall. Games against the house don't count.