Kobudai 2021

Kobudai is a two player game played on a 6x6 (or 8x8…) checkerboard. The starting position is like Checkers except all dark squares are occupied. And the two opposite corner dark squares are occupied by stacks of 2 like colored checkers, the males. All other checkers comprise stacks of height 1, the females.

You win by annihilating the enemy. Draws cannot occur in Kobudai.

PlayYour male must never be cordoned off from any enemy stacks by a loop or an edge-to-edge path of orthogonally (i.e., horizontally or vertically) connected friendly females.

To begin your turn, if all of your stacks are female, you must add a checker to one of them (which is not cordoned off from any enemy stacks by other friendly females), thereby converting it to a male. You conclude your turn my moving one of your females. (Males are stationary.) If you have a move available, you must make one. Otherwise you must sit the game out and wait until you do have a move available.

MovesFemales move like a Chess king. You can only move a female which has a clear path of unoccupied squares (which are connected orthogonally, diagonally, or both) to the enemy male. For a given female, you must select the shortest such path and move your female to shorten it.

Females can’t be killed. Only males can be killed, by enemy females. Killing is not mandatory (unless it's your only available move).