Hoyito III
Game type: Two-player two-row mancala without stores; multi-lap relay sowing; single-hole casa capture on the final stone with turn continuation.
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Overview
Hoyito III is a focused, decisive variation of the Dominican Republic's Hoyito (Casitas or Mate) mancala tradition. Documented by researcher Víktor Bautista i Roca during his 2005 field study in Barahona, the rules of this specific variation were shared by a twenty-year-old player named Johnny who came from the sugar factory community of Batey. Hoyito III retains the extra-turn incentive of Hoyito II while eliminating backward chain captures, concentrating tactical play entirely on securing landing-hole captures.
Board
- Ranks/rows: Two
- Holes per row: 6
- Stores: None
- Seeds per hole at start: 4 (total seeds: 48)
- The board consists of two rows of six holes called casitas ("little houses"), dug into the ground or marked on concrete surfaces.
How to Play
- On their turn, a player lifts the contents from one of their own holes and sows them, one by one, counter-clockwise into subsequent holes.
- If the last stone lands in an occupied hole, relay sowing continues: its contents (including the last distributed counter) are scooped up and sown in a new lap starting from the next hole.
- When the last stone drops into an empty hole, the turn ends.
- If a player cannot move because they have no stones in their holes, they pass their turn until stones enter their side.
Differences from Hoyito II:
- Captures are restricted strictly to the final landing hole (no backward unbroken sequence of preceding fours is won).
- Successfully capturing a four earns the moving player an immediate extra turn.
- Special round-based match conventions apply to the award of the final four seeds.
Capturing
- Capturing occurs only when the last distributed counter lands in a hole to make its contents exactly four. The player collects those four counters.
- Preceding holes holding four counters are not captured.
- Successfully making a capture grants the player another turn.
End of Game and Winning
- The winner of an individual game is the player who captures the greater number of stones.
- When games are played in a multi-round match, the remaining four seeds on the board are allocated as follows:
- In the first two rounds of a match, the player who captured the penultimate group of four also receives the final four seeds, ending the game.
- In all subsequent rounds, the final four seeds are awarded to whichever player won the preceding game.
Notes
- Hoyito III represents the living urban and peri-urban tradition of Dominican mancala as preserved among working-class youth in the sugar-producing regions of Barahona.
- The rule awarding the final four counters to the prior round's victor in later games serves as a match handicapping and momentum mechanic unique to this variant.
Source: Mancala World – Hoyito III