Learn the Rules

How a game of shax unfolds

You need to know four things: how the board is shaped, how pieces go down, how they slide, and what a jare does. Ten minutes and you can hold your own.

01

First, the board

Twenty-four points and nothing else

Three rings, twenty-four points

Three squares nested inside one another. Pieces never sit inside a square, only on the corners and on the midpoints of the sides, where lines meet. That is twenty-four playable points in total.

The four spokes

The midpoint of each side is joined straight through to the other rings. Those four spokes are the only way between the outer, middle and inner rings, which makes them the most contested points on the board.

No diagonals, no jumping

A piece may only slide along a drawn line to a point directly next to it. There are no diagonal moves, and no jumping over another piece, not even at the end of a game.

02

Step by step

Eight steps, start to finish

  1. 01

    Twelve pieces each

    Each player starts with twelve pieces in hand and an empty board. Black places first, then you alternate, one piece at a time, on any empty point you like.

    Watch out

    Twelve and twelve is twenty-four, exactly as many points as the board has. By the end of placement the board is completely full. Plan for that.

  2. 02

    A jare is three in a row

    Three of your pieces filling one straight line, along a side of any ring or straight down a spoke through all three rings, is a jare. Sixteen such lines exist on the board.

    Watch out

    A jare made during placement does not take a piece straight away. Hold that thought. See step 4.

  3. 03

    The first jare is worth remembering

    Whoever completes the first jare of the game earns a privilege that is paid out later, and, just as valuable, the right to move first once the sliding begins.

    Watch out

    Don't force it. A jare grabbed with badly-placed pieces buys you one capture and costs you the whole middlegame.

  4. 04

    When the board fills, the debts are paid

    Once all twenty-four pieces are down, the player who made the first jare removes one enemy piece from anywhere on the board. Then the other player removes one too. This is the moment the game opens up: those two gaps are the only empty points there are.

    Watch out

    If neither player made a jare during placement, nothing is removed, and with a completely full board, nobody can move at all. The game is dead on arrival. In practice, this is why you want that first jare.

  5. 05

    Now you slide

    From here on, a turn means moving one of your pieces along a line into an empty point next to it. With only two gaps on a crowded board, every slide matters and most pieces cannot move at all.

    Watch out

    Ask which of your pieces can move at all before you plan anything. Usually it is two or three.

  6. 06

    Every new jare takes a piece

    When a slide completes a line of three, you immediately remove any one of your opponent's pieces, from anywhere, not just nearby. Break your own jare and reform it next turn, and you capture again.

    Watch out

    That opening-and-closing trick is the single most powerful pattern in the game. Learn to build one, and learn to spot when your opponent has.

  7. 07

    Boxed in? Call for a path

    If it is your turn and not one of your pieces can move, you are not out. You call “jid i sii aan jar aheyn”, give me a way without a jare, and your opponent must make a move that frees you.

    Watch out

    If the move they are forced to make happens to complete a jare for them, they take nothing for it. That is oodan, the one time in shax a line of three is worth nothing.

  8. 08

    Win by leaving them two

    Keep capturing until your opponent has only two pieces left. Two can never make a line of three, so the game is decided. There is no comeback, and no rule that lets a short-handed player fly around the board. A player may also simply concede.

03

Now watch one

A whole game, move by move

The eight steps above in one continuous game: twelve pieces a side going down, the board filling until nothing can move, the first jare being paid, and then the middlegame where every line that closes costs somebody a stone. It plays itself. Stop it wherever you like and step through a turn at a time.

BlackWhite0 / 44

The pieces go down

Black places first, then the two alternate. Twelve pieces each, onto any empty point. Nobody captures anything yet. This is the part where the game is really decided.

04

The words

Say it the way it is said

The game's vocabulary stays in Somali here, because that is what you will hear at a real board, and because several of these words are used far outside the game.

shax
the game's name in the north
The game itself, and by extension the board drawn on the ground.
jar
“the cut”
The same game, as it is called in central and southern Somalia. A player is a jaraysto.
jare
“that which cuts”
Three of your pieces in a straight line. Scoring one lets you remove an enemy piece.
oodan
“closed”
The state of being walled in, and the rule that a jare formed while forced to open a path takes nothing.
jid i sii aan jar aheyn
“give me a way, without a jare”
What a trapped player calls out. The opponent must then free a path.
irmaan
a milking she-camel
A formation you can milk, one that keeps producing captures turn after turn.
afarey
“having four”
A four-piece shape held as preparation, before it scores anything.
suran
“hanging”
Pieces poised one move away from a jare, a threat left hanging over the board.