Kōnane is an ancient Hawaiian abstract strategy board game played on a filled 8x8 grid of black and white stones. Each turn you jump one of your own stones over an adjacent enemy stone into the empty space beyond, removing every stone you leap. There is no material goal at all: the first player who cannot jump loses, so Kōnane is a pure contest of mobility.
How to Play Kōnane: Learn the Rules
Kōnane is an ancient Hawaiian abstract strategy board game played on a filled 8x8 grid of black and white stones. Each turn you jump one of your own stones over an adjacent enemy stone into the empty space beyond, removing every stone you leap. There is no material goal at all: the first player who cannot jump loses, so Kōnane is a pure contest of mobility.
Objective
The goal of Kōnane is to make the last legal move. You do not win by capturing the most stones or by reaching a target square. Instead you try to keep jumps available for yourself while stripping them away from your opponent. As soon as a player begins their turn with no legal jump, that player loses and their opponent wins, however many stones each side still has on the board.
Setup
The board is an 8x8 papamu with every one of the 64 squares filled, black and white stones alternating like a checkerboard. Black opens by lifting one of their own stones off the board, choosing either a corner or one of the two central black squares. White then lifts one of their own stones from a square orthogonally next to the resulting gap. Those two removals create the empty space the game needs, and Black then makes the first jump.
Gameplay
Players alternate turns, Black first. On your turn you move one of your own stones by jumping it over an orthogonally adjacent enemy stone and landing on the empty square directly beyond. The stone you jumped is removed from the board. You may continue jumping with the same stone in the same direction, taking a second and a third enemy stone, as long as each hop clears an enemy stone into an empty square. You may stop after any hop, but you may never change direction mid-turn and you may never jump diagonally. Jumping is not compulsory in the sense of being forced onto a particular stone, but you must make some legal jump if you have one.
Winning
A player who starts their turn with no legal jump loses immediately, and their opponent wins. Kōnane can never be drawn: every move removes at least one stone from the board, so the position keeps simplifying and the game always reaches an end. Stone counts are irrelevant to the result, and a player with far fewer stones often wins because their remaining stones still have somewhere to jump.
Objective
The goal of Kōnane is to make the last legal move. You do not win by capturing the most stones or by reaching a target square. Instead you try to keep jumps available for yourself while stripping them away from your opponent. As soon as a player begins their turn with no legal jump, that player loses and their opponent wins, however many stones each side still has on the board.
Setup
The board is an 8x8 papamu with every one of the 64 squares filled, black and white stones alternating like a checkerboard. Black opens by lifting one of their own stones off the board, choosing either a corner or one of the two central black squares. White then lifts one of their own stones from a square orthogonally next to the resulting gap. Those two removals create the empty space the game needs, and Black then makes the first jump.
Gameplay
Players alternate turns, Black first. On your turn you move one of your own stones by jumping it over an orthogonally adjacent enemy stone and landing on the empty square directly beyond. The stone you jumped is removed from the board. You may continue jumping with the same stone in the same direction, taking a second and a third enemy stone, as long as each hop clears an enemy stone into an empty square. You may stop after any hop, but you may never change direction mid-turn and you may never jump diagonally. Jumping is not compulsory in the sense of being forced onto a particular stone, but you must make some legal jump if you have one.
Winning
A player who starts their turn with no legal jump loses immediately, and their opponent wins. Kōnane can never be drawn: every move removes at least one stone from the board, so the position keeps simplifying and the game always reaches an end. Stone counts are irrelevant to the result, and a player with far fewer stones often wins because their remaining stones still have somewhere to jump.
Learn, Play, and Have Fun!
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