Seeded players

Natural History, Feb, 1998 by Alex de Voogt

Calculating elaborate moves and orchestrating complicated captures several moves ahead are central to the art of a bao master. Such skills cannot be acquired after a few months of looking at the game but require the kind of dedication and talent characteristic of chess masters. The two games differ greatly, but both are at the upper limit of complexity that humans can master. Games with more complicated moves can easily be devised and can be calculated by computers. But if the moves are generally too difficult for the human player to calculate, the game becomes one of chance, in which players move randomly without making a serious effort to calculate. At the other extreme are games in which the calculations are too easy for the experienced player. Such games, like tick-tack-toe, may satisfy children but otherwise result in a pointless series of draws.

When the bao master has reviewed all possible moves and decided on the best or trickiest one, he will spread the seeds at high speed, frequently throwing three or four at a time. Only five or six turns later are the master's plans revealed, and a beginner will find that he could not even have calculated the first, let alone the subsequent moves. A mediocre player will use other means to win a game. Teasing, joking, and challenging the opponent are a matter of course. Or a player might hide a seed in his palm, make advantageous "errors" in distributing seeds, or intimidate his opponent with the rapid and forceful spreading of seeds. But nothing will disturb a master, who will calculate the moves and corner the challenger.

A memorable duel of wits occurred in the semifinals of a bao masters tournament held in Zanzibar in 1994. Masoud Hassan Ali (known as Kijumbe) played Ali Maulid Hussein (known as Maulidi) in what turned out to be the tournament's longest match. Either could take the match simply by winning two games in a row, but on three successive days they won one game each. Their engagements began at four o'clock in the afternoon just after their prayers in the local mosque - and continued until dawn. Kijumbe, the most respected player of the tournament, whose fame dates from the 1960s but whose age is not exactly known, slowly began to show signs of fatigue. His passion for the game and determination to beat his twenty-six-year-old opponent was getting the better of him.

Kijumbe's plans in the semifinals consisted of some intricate gambits known as tapisha bao (vomiting bao). Anticipating moves way ahead, a player offers his opponent not one or two but tens of seeds. Capturing is obligatory, and the opponent is force fed into a position where he will easily lose his wealth again. Kijumbe got spectacular wins, but on the fourth day his strategy turned against him, and the younger man went on to win the finals. Kijumbe had not played at so demanding a level in twenty years, and although he should have mastered his opponent, one cannot always master bao. As they say in Swahili, bao mguu wa shetani (bao is a leg of the devil).