Playing Alone and Endlessly

By

Obododimma Oha

Nchọkịrị (or Ayọ in Yoruba), like most games, needs more than one player. It permits pluralism in an exceptional and fascinating way, for it could be played by two, three, four, five, six, and twelve persons in an anti-clockwise fashion. It is made up twelve “houses” (or sites) and, just like Monopoly, each player aims at acquiring more houses and leaving the other without property, stranded! Even if one player plays “alone,” that lone player has to imagine the presence of another player normally called “Nwa Alị” in my dialect of Igbo. Nwa Alị’s rights and turns must be respected. So, the lone player is not really playing alone, even if Nwa Alị ends up being cheated here and there.

Now, back to the juxtaposition with Monopoly. Unlike in Monopoly where the other side experiences calamity by being “bought” out of business, the Nchọkịrị players are conscious of competition and opposition and still need losers to be winners. It is also for the other in Nchọkịrị to recognise and say the winner is a winner, and not for the latter to proclaim it, what more in falsehood as in politics!

Thus, Nchọkịrị, in a sense, symbolizes a fair democratic system, which requires giving everyone a fair opportunity to participate. This is particularly represented by the operation of turn-taking rules in the game, and sometimes an enhancement from other ad hoc rules like “touch-and-play”and “No Counting.” Each player is expected to comply and to play by the rules.

For Nchọkịrị to succeed as a game, the turn-taking is imperative and must continue till the end at which point all houses must have been possessed. Whenever each player collects seeds from a START point (which he/she is free to choose, to admit chance as a factor in outcome!), he or she must deposit a seed in each subsequent or expectant house and whatever house the the last seed collected is deposited, he or she is allowed to collect all the seeds therein and continue the distributive movement until he or she “lands”in an empty house or ends up with the last seed in a “pregnant” (almost full) house. (I commend the efforts of those who have made Nchọkịrị modern by carving the holes of the houses in wood that is portable or who have gone ahead to develop apps of it that are installable, even on  phones).

It is normal to play on until this empty house or pregnant house is reached, but abnormal for the distribution to continue endlessly. It is not only a mathematical game that involves secret calculation and prediction, it calls for full alertness, for the other player might look for an undue advantage to win.The surprising endlessness (which one could just call ebeebe in Igbo) is unusual but could result, as it once did when this author was once playing and was looking for a way to win fraudulently. Both players later started investigating how this happened, when the ebeebe was becoming unbearable after 13 rounds of play! The original position, we discovered (we were playing with a total of four seeds per "harvestable" house) was as follows:

START   XXX↓                        X      (Player B’s territory)

X                           .       (Player B’s territory)

.                            X      (Player B’s territory)       

XX                        .

X                          X

.                          XX

↙

XX                   X       (Player B’s territory)

X                      X      (Player B’s territory)    ebeebe                                                                          

.                       .         (Player B’s territory)

XX                   X

X                      .

XXX^E               X

^E(an ebeebe

resulting for Player A, since the three seeds require an abortion and continuation!)

Relevant key

X= Seed presence

. = Seed absence

↓=direction of play

 Player A, in the existing game, had won seven houses, with only two houses to complete ownership of a nine-house territory. Player B had only secured two, and so was still on great disadvantage. Three houses were still at stake! Player A wanted to have the three in order to increase the lead from nine to ten. Player B was looking for a way to get at least one more house to stop Player A’s encroachment. Player A (whose turn it was to play), was poised to stop Player B from recovering and winning any more. Player B was disadvantaged and Player A knew it, but Player A wanted it all by any means. Player A wanted it all, and ironically had it all now by playing alone in ebeebe. The interdependency and symbiosis and tolerance were now gone. As the Igbo would put it wisely, Ochọ ihe ukwu lekwa agba enyi (The person who is desperately  looking for a huge share, should have the jowl of an elephant to self).

Mathematicians, please, help out: check how seed movement can get to an ebeebe from a stochastic START? Also, work out for us how ebeebe could be avoided in this struggle to retain or steal territory. Is Player A not in a kind of self-punishment, playing alone and endlessly?

 The dominance-oriented player wanted to humiliate Player B further, but ironically ended up punishing self.  I was once this Player A and I confess that I was sweating and praying for my turn to end but it didn’t. When Player wanted to leave (being a visitor), I thanked my stars secretly that something, an excuse (of the need to go home), was going to save me from playing alone and endlessly.