Bagh Chaal

The literal meaning of Bagh Chal is tiger’s move. One of the most popular games which is originated in Nepal is Bagh Chal. It is basically a strategic board game which is played between two players. The rules are simple and it doesn’t need any special pieces like we need in chess or snakes and ladders.
One of the two players plays the tiger and other one plays sheep. There are four tigers and twenty sheep. The main object for the tiger is to jump over a goat and kill it and for the sheep, the main goal is to trap the tiger. If a tiger is able to jump over a sheep, then the sheep is dead. But while jumping over a sheep, the tiger has to follow a straight line and can jump only over a single sheep at a time. The movement of both the tiger and the sheep is just one step to an intersection of the lines. When five sheep are dead the tiger is the winner. And if all the four tigers have nowhere to move when the sheep has blocked their way, the sheep would be the winner. The movement of either the tiger or the sheep is only one step from one intersection to the other.

This picture is a perfect example of tiger losing the game. The big black dots represent tigers and the small blue dots represent sheep. All the intersections are filled leaving only one spot. The tiger has no space for any movement and thus the sheep is the winner here.
This bagh chal is a very strategic game and a lot of concentration is necessary. This board game is also very cheap as twenty small pebbles can be taken as sheep and slightly bigger pebbles can be taken as tigers. Though this game is not very popular in the urban areas of Nepal, it is the most popular form of recreation in the rural areas of Nepal.