Rules
How to play Ayo Online
Sow seeds. Capture carefully. Score to win.
Quick rules
Set up
12 pits, 4 seeds each: 48 total. Player one owns 1–6 and starts; player two owns 7–12.
Sow
Take all seeds from a non-empty pit on your side. Drop one per following pit, wrapping 12 to 1. Skip the starting pit every lap.
Capture
Last seed makes an opponent's pit exactly 2 or 3? Take it, then consecutive opponent pits with 2 or 3, working backward. Stop at another count or your side. Captures score automatically.
Pass
No seeds on your side? Pass; an empty side alone does not end play.
Finish
End at 25 captured seeds or fewer than 4 board seeds. Higher captured score wins; equal scores draw. Leftover seeds do not score.
Try a move—no account needed
Choose a lesson, predict the result, then tap a non-empty pit on your side. This uses the same rules as the game; nothing is saved or ranked.
You own pits 1–6. Predict where the 3 seeds in pit 6 will land, then try it.
Pits 7–12 · sow right to left
Pits 1–6 · sow left to right
Your side: pits 1–6. Captured scores before this move: 0–9. Colored pits are available to try.
Read the worked answers
Capture seven seeds
You own pits 1–6. Predict where the 3 seeds in pit 6 will land, then try it.
Pit 9 ends with 2 seeds. Walking backward, pit 8 has 3 and pit 7 has 2: all three are captured, for 7. Pit 6 is your side, so the chain stops.
Make a safe opening
On a fresh board, try the 4 seeds in pit 1. Which pits will change?
Pits 2–5 each become 5. The last seed stays on your side, so there is no capture. Leaving no pits holding 1 or 2 avoids an immediate capture target for your opponent.
Find where a capture stops
Try the 5 seeds in pit 5. Will the capture reach past pit 10?
Pit 10 becomes 2 and is captured. Pit 9 becomes 5, which stops the chain. A capture does not jump over a pit with the wrong count.
Skip the starting pit
You own pits 7–12 in this exercise. Try the 12 seeds in pit 7 and watch the wrap.
A lap visits the other 11 pits, skipping pit 7. The twelfth seed returns to pit 8, which receives two seeds in total. The starting pit remains empty.
Strategy
Target opponent pits holding 1 or 2. Count your landing and check their next capture.
7-seed capture: Sow 3 from pit 6: pits 7–9 change from 1, 2, 1 to 2, 3, 2. Capture backward from pit 9 for 7 seeds.
Check the reply: a move that wins 2 seeds but lets your opponent take 7 loses ground. Before sowing, look for your own pits holding 1 or 2 and count whether the opponent can reach them next.
App variant: No need to feed an empty opponent; capturing their entire side is allowed. Repeated positions may be settled only in computer practice.
See the capture diagram
Player two · sow right to left
- 124
- 114
- 104
- 92last
- 83sown
- 72sown
- 14
- 24
- 34
- 44
- 54
- 60from
Player one · sow left to right
Pit 6 continues to pit 7. Pit 12 wraps to pit 1.
Common questions and mistakes
Why did a pit with 2 seeds not get captured?
A pit is not captured just because it contains 2 or 3. Your last seed must land on the opponent’s side in a pit that now has 2 or 3. Only then can the capture walk backward through consecutive opponent pits with those counts. Landing on your own side captures nothing.
Why did the game pass instead of finish?
An empty side misses its turn; it does not by itself end this version. Play ends at 25 captured seeds or fewer than 4 seeds left on the board. Those leftover seeds do not count toward either score.
Does a room code let anyone play immediately?
No. The room owner must approve each new guest request. Share your code with your intended opponent. After a round, both players must agree before a rematch starts.
Do lessons or computer games affect my ranking?
No. These lessons do not save results. Computer practice is saved on your device and remains unranked; only server-run multiplayer results contribute to the leaderboard.