Mak-yek
Mak-yek (Template:Lang-th, RTGS: mak yaek) is a board game played in Thailand (formerly Siam) and Myanmar (formerly Burma).[1][2][3] The game is played on an 8 by 8 square board by two players each having sixteen pieces or "men." A Malaysian variant called Apit-sodok is closely related.[4]
Men are laid out on the first and third row from the player. There is no special way of deciding who starts the game. Players take turns moving their men horizontally or vertically like the rook in chess (i.e. not through pieces), capturing the opponent's pieces through custodian capture and intervention capture.
Intervention capture is the opposite of custodian. If a stone moves between two enemy stones, it captures both stones.
The first player with no pieces left loses.
A similar game is also played in Cambodia called Rek where both custodian and intervention captures are also featured, however each player has an additional piece which is a king, and the objective of each player is to capture the other player's king thus resembling chess. A variant of Rek called Min Rek Chanh is also similarly related.[5]
Mak-yek, Apit-sodok, Rek, and Min Rek Chanh exhibit intervention capture in addition to custodian capture and orthogonal movement of pieces as in the rook in chess. Therefore, they form a subfamily within the family of games that includes only custodian capture and orthogonal movement of pieces such as Jul-Gonu, Hasami shogi, Dai hasami shogi, Ming Mang, Gundru, Seega, Ludus latrunculorum, Petteia, and Firdawsi’s Nard. They are also related to the Tafl games for the same reasons except that the Tafl games are asymmetrical in the number and type of pieces each player possess; furthermore, the objective in Tafl games is for one player to move their king to the edge of the board, and the objective of the other player is to capture that king. It may also be distantly related to Agon, Awithlaknakwe, Bizingo, Reversi, Othello, Wei-chi, Baduk, and Go as all of these games exhibit custodian capture or some form of it (as in the case of Wei-chi, Baduk, and Go).
References
- ^ Huttmann, G.H. (1836). Asiatic Researches; or, Transactions of the Society, Instituted in Bengal, For Inquiring into The History, The Antiquities, The Arts and Sciences, and Literature of Asia, Volume 20. Calcutta: Bengal Military Orphan Press. p. 382-383. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
- ^ Murray, H.J.R. (2012). A History of Chess: The Original 1913 Edition. New York, NY: First Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 978-1-63220-293-2. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
- ^ Cronida, Ares. "Los juegos de soldados". Ares Cronida cuentos, mitos, leyendas, magia y más. wordpress.com. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
- ^ Samusah, Rajah (January 1932). Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume X (PDF). Singapore: Printers Limited. pp. 138–140. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
- ^ Cazaux, Jean-Louis. "Cambodian". Chesmayne. Retrieved 31 March 2017.
Bibliography
- H. J. R. Murray: History of Board Games other than Chess (1952)
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