How to play Baagh Chaal
Baagh Chaal is a traditional board game from Nepal for two players with different goals. Four tigers try to capture five goats. Twenty goats try to block every tiger. At EverestBuzz you play two games and swap sides, giving each player a chance to solve both parts of the puzzle.
What you need
Two players use a five-by-five board of connected points. Four tigers start in the corners. The goats begin off the board and enter one at a time. Goats move first. The host plays goats first in a friends table, and the players swap sides for game two.
Look at the actual lines before moving. Ringed points have diagonal connections. Small dots do not. Two places that look close on the screen are not necessarily connected by a legal line. Each move must follow the board's drawn connections.
Pieces
| Side | Pieces and aim |
|---|---|
| Tigers | Four starting in the corners; capture five goats to win |
| Goats | Twenty placed one per turn; block all tiger moves to win |
| Empty point | A possible destination when the connecting line permits it |
A capture removes a goat from the board. It does not create a replacement goat. The tiger's landing point must be empty. Tigers can also slide along the lines instead of capturing. Goats use placement first and sliding moves after all twenty have been placed.
How a turn works
- As goats, place one goat on an empty point while you still have goats to place. Check nearby tigers and the empty points behind your chosen position.
- As tigers, slide along a connected line or jump over a goat in a straight line onto an empty point. A capture is one jump per turn.
- Keep alternating turns through the placement phase. The goats are building a position while tigers can already look for captures.
- After all twenty goats have been placed, the goat side slides goats along the lines. Recheck which routes open when a goat leaves its old point.
- After each move, check both goals: five captured goats for tigers, or no legal move for any tiger for goats.
For a capture pattern, picture a tiger, a goat and an empty point in a straight connected line. The tiger jumps the goat to that empty point. If another goat occupies the landing point, that jump is unavailable. If the line does not exist, the visual alignment alone is insufficient.
How a round ends and Scoring
Tigers win immediately upon capturing their fifth goat. Goats win when every tiger is blocked so none can move. Blocking one tiger is useful progress, yet the goat victory requires all four to be trapped.
A position repeated three times or a game reaching 400 moves is drawn. A win earns one point, and a draw earns none. The two-game table swaps the sides after game one. That swap changes the pieces you control rather than giving a point bonus.
For a worked example, the first player controls goats in game one and traps all tigers. The score is 1–0. After the sides swap, the second player controls goats and wins by trapping the tigers. The final score is 1–1. If game two had been drawn instead, it would add no points and the score would remain 1–0.
Keep captures separate from match points. Four captures do not earn four scoreboard points. They tell you how close the tigers are to the five-capture winning condition. The point is awarded when the game is won.
House-rule choices at EverestBuzz tables
The table offers Easy, Medium and Hard computer levels. Practice can let you start as tigers; friends tables start with the host as goats. The board lines, five-capture goal, two-game side swap and draw conditions follow this house version. Check the on-screen side before making your first move.
Beginner tips
- As goats, check the landing point behind a new placement.
- Build support between goats instead of leaving isolated targets.
- As tigers, preserve movement space as well as capture chances.
- Count available moves for every tiger before assuming the board is sealed.
For more position ideas, read tigers and goats tactics. Baagh Chaal here is points only: no money, bets or prizes.