The board consists of two rows of five 'pits' and two 'cups' for collecting captured beads. There are two players, north and south. Each player controls the five pits on his side. In the initial position each pit contains one stone and one gem. Gems have the above values. There are 30 points worth of gems in the game.

Sowing

• Players move and must move in turn. On his turn a player selects a pit on his own side of the board, picks up all the beads in it, and sows them, one at the time, into the other pits around the board, moving in a counter-clockwise direction.
• While sowing, a player is free to choose which bead to drop in which pit. No pit may receive more than one bead unless there are enough beads to go around the board more than once. No pit may be skipped, except that if the pit whose contents are moved contains more than nine beads, the original pit is skipped. Thus the tenth bead is sown into the same pit as the first, and any additional beads continue to be sown counterclockwise, as usual.

Capture

• If the last bead sown is a stone that falls into a pit on the opponent's side of the board, and if that opponent's pit contained exactly one bead before the stone was placed there, the player making the move makes a capture.
  It's irrelevant whether the single bead in the opponent's pit got there because the opponent left it there, or whether it was placed there by the moving player as part of the same turn, in a move that involved enough beads to go around the board and into the opponent's pits once again.
  
  What kind of capture is made depends on the single bead in the final pit:
  
  • If it is a gem, it is captured, and placed in the capturing player's cup. This is called 'direct capture'.
  • If it is a stone, the player may choose any gem from any of the opponent's pits and place it in his cup. This is known as 'indirect capture'.
    If there are no gems on the opponent's side of the board, the player may choose any gem from his opponent's cup instead. This makes that no gem is ever completely safe till the game is over.
    If the opponent's cup is empty too, no capture is made.

Multiple capture

• If the last two or more beads sown are stones that fall into pits on the opponent's side of the board, and if each of these pits, in an unbroken row counting backwards from the last, contained exactly one gem before the stones were placed there, the player making the move makes a direct multiple capture of all gems involved.
• If the last two or more beads sown are stones that fall into pits on the opponent's side of the board, and if each of these opponent's pits, in an unbroken row counting backwards from the last, contained exactly one stone before the stones were placed there, the player making the move makes an indirect multiple capture, which means that he may choose one gem for every pit involved, from his opponent's pits.
  If there are no or an insufficient number of gems on the opponent's side of the board, the player may proceed to choose any gems from his opponent's cup instead, till he reaches the appointed number or till no more gems are available.

Five empty pits

• If a player empties his last pit while there are still gems in play, the opponent on his next turn is obliged to 'feed' him at least one bead. This is always possible.

The endgame
When all gems have been captured, the endgame starts. With only stones in play, indirect capture from the opponent's cup is the only means to score.
Players now are no longer under the obligation to feed an opponent who ran out of beads, but quite contrary find it their prime target, provided they have enough points.

Object
A player can only win in the endgame. He does so when he has at least 15 points and his opponent, to move, has no beads in any of his pits. 'Emptying' the opponent while having less than 15 points is not illegal, but loses the game. Draws cannot occur.