The Tiger and Goats Game

Last Saturday, I stepped out of my appartment at about 6pm to go for a walk. This is the exact time when you get the chance to see the underbelly of the Dub*i's construction industry. The ant army of Indian/Paki/Bangladeshi/SriLankan workers are horded into vehicles to be transported to labour camps far from the city.

Now that's a price, civilization has to pay for creating a dream city and I am not interested in commenting on it. What I am about to write is about a sudden glimpse a forgotten (by me!!) Indian game that how it haunted me for the next two days.

A couple of workers waiting for their tranport sat on the pavement huddled around a piece of cardboard. As i passed them, I caught a glimpse of the chequered piece of paper infront of them. I should have stopped and watched them for a while and talked to them, but I moved on telling myself "I know this game.I have played it when I was a child"

30mins latter I was standing on the creek front tryin to figure out the exact number of boxes in the grid, the rules etc etc.. All I could remember was that years ago, this game had fascinated me beyond reason. I was the snobbish town Kid who used to land up in this dusty village every summer for his vaccations. It was very easy to be the center of attraction talking about strange things from the city, to other kids and they had to conjure up ways to show what they knew better than me. So be it the secret way to the big mango orchard, the expertise in catapult or simply winning in the game of cards, there was enough those kids were better at. One of the things where I did not want to lose was in the game of "Bagha Cheli" (Tigers and goats). In those days, it was the ultimate proof of how sharp you were. The varendah of the house right across my home had a permanent playing board. Some wise guy had drawn the board on the cement and left to dry. All you had to do was pick up 4 large stones and 20 small ones and we were ready for the game.

To cut the story short, I spent the next 2 days asking all the people who I thought had a remote chance of knowing about this game. I reached the conclusion this game never saw the commercial world and is limited only to the villages. So finally I hit the drawing board. Here is the final output. If any of you have ever played this game and remember the details, you will do me a favour validating the rules I have cooked up :)

The Board: Draw a (4 x 4 ) square grid. Connect the diagonals and the mid-point of the sides.
The Pawns: 4 Tigers, 20 Goats


The Rules:

1. This game can be played by two players.
2. One player control the Tigers and the other controls the Goats.
3. The players will have 4 tigers and 20 goats respectively. These are placed on the vertices.
4. The player with the Tigers gets to open the game by placing his 4 pieces at any 4 corners of the board.
5. The Goats are placed one by one anywhere (emply vertex) on the board.Untill all the goats are placed, they cannot be moved from their initial positions.
6. While each goat is placed, the tiger can move one step each time.
7. The pieces (Both Tigers and Goats) can move only over the lines.
8. A Tiger can jump over a Goat if the next vertex is vaccant. Each time a tiger does this, the tiger eats the goat and the piece is removed from the board.
9. The goats can render a tiger piece useless by cornering it or not provide it space to move.
10. Objective for the tiger: Kill and eat all the goats
11. Objective for the goat: Corner/Neutralize all tigers
12. No player can miss a turn.
13. No goat can move into the same position more than two consecutive times without moving another goat.

Seems like I have figured out the basic rules but can't figure out the finer details... I wish someone had developed this simple game for me to download and play :)

PS: Just 2 hrs after i completed the post, I have found enough material on the net..
1- http://www.gamepandit.com/games/tiger_goat.html (opens in a new page)
Nice writeup..
2- http://kreedaakaushalya.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-play-goats-and-tigers.html (opens in a new page)
A really detailed page, but of a different version of the game. Mentions that the board pattern is drawn on the parapet inside the mahadwara of the Chamundeshwari temple, Mysore
3-http://home.wxs.nl/~pvsanten/mmp/ppc_teng.htm (opens in a new page)
One for my handheld..but seems like a very old version.. wont work on winmobile6.1
4- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sher-bakar (opens in a new page)
General gyaan..
5- http://www.elvingames.com/tigers-n-goats.html (opens in a new page)
The best set of instructions.

Some images.. The last one is the one etched in my memories..