Lukho is a traditional mancala game, played by the Bukusu people living by the Elgon mountain, in Kenya. Only older men can play it.
Rules
Lukho is played on a 2x8 mancala board (i.e., 2 rows of 8 pits each), with 48 seeds.
A peculiarity of Lukho is the game setup. In the beginning, 3 seeds are placed in each pit. Then, players can remove as many seeds as they want from their own pits. After that, both players drop, at the same time, any number of the seeds they have removed from their own pits into a single opponent's pit. Still at the same time, they then sow those seeds following the same rules described below for subsequent sowings (captures included). Note that since players move concurrently, the outcome of this startup phase is quite unpredictable. The first player to complete his sowing will be the first one to play in the remainder of the game.
Another peculiar element of Lukho is that, once the opening move described above is done, all of the subsequent moves are set. In other words, the outcome of the game is decided by that single opening move described above. At his turn, the player must take all the seeds from the leftmost non-empty pit of his row, and relay-sow them counterclockwise. If the last seed is dropped in an empty pit of the player's row, and the opponent's opposite pit is non empty, then the seeds in that pit are captured, together with the capturing seed. If there is a continuous line of non empty pits after the one that has been captured, all the pits in that line are also captured.
There's one more rule that is similar to that of "bulls" in Maasai's Enkeshui, and that is the only rule that does not apply in the first move of the game. If the last seed of a sowing is dropped in a pit that contains exactly one seed, the turn is over and that pit becomes a "knife" belonging to the player who just moved. Seeds that are in a knife cannot be moved, and at end game they will be automatically captured by the player who owns the knife.
When one of the players cannot move any more, the game is over. The player who captured most seeds wins the game.
Usually, players will play several games (usually twelve, or multiples of twelve). Each game brings a score that is calculated as follows: