How to play Kauda
Kauda is the cowrie game of Tihar. Four seats sit round a mat, one of them holds sixteen shells, and the other three stake against it. The shells are thrown, the ones that land mouth up are counted, and the count says which seat is paid.
- Players
- 4, one at each dau
- What you need
- Sixteen cowrie shells, a mat and a pile of chips
- How long
- Two rounds of the mat, about nine turns with the shells
What Kauda is
Kauda comes out at Tihar, played on mats in courtyards and on verandas late into the night. Its kit is sixteen cowrie shells, the small glossy shells that were once money.
Four people sit round the mat, each at a seat called a dau. One of them holds the shells, and the other three put stakes down against that person. Then the shells are thrown.
Everything turns on how they land. A shell that lands mouth up counts, and how many do decides whose dau the throw belongs to.
The four daus
The daus are named for numbers: teeya is three, chauka four, panja five and chhakka six. They sit round the mat counter-clockwise in that order, so the next seat is always on your right.
A count belongs to the dau whose number it matches after dividing by four. Seven is teeya’s, like three and eleven. Five, nine and thirteen are panja’s. Nought, four, eight, twelve and sixteen are all chauka’s.
So chauka owns five of the seventeen counts and each other dau four. With fair shells the four come up almost exactly a quarter of the time each: chauka a shade more, at 25.2%, and chhakka a shade less, at 24.8%.
A turn with the shells
- The seat holding the shells is the thrower, the hate. The other three stake against it in turn, starting from the seat on its right.
- The thrower throws all sixteen shells into the ring.
- Count the shells lying mouth up. The count names a dau.
- If it is the thrower’s own dau, the thrower takes every stake on the mat and throws again, and everybody staking against it doubles their stake.
- If it is another dau, the thrower pays that seat as much as it staked. The other two keep their stakes, and the shells pass to the next seat.
Teeya throws first. A turn lasts as long as the thrower keeps hitting, so it can be a single throw or a long run.
Reading a throw
A cowrie has two faces. Its back is a smooth glossy dome, and its underside is flat with a toothed slit down the middle, the mouth. Only the shells showing their mouth are counted.
On this mat every shell that lands mouth up gets a pale disc under it once they are all at rest, and the count is read out before any chips move.
A hit
When the count is the thrower’s own dau, the thrower has hit: मार्यो. Every stake on the mat goes to the thrower, and the thrower throws again.
Before the next throw, everybody staking against the thrower has to double what they had down. This is the mar-taal, and every account of the game calls it compulsory. It keeps doubling for as long as the thrower keeps hitting.
A seat that cannot double stakes everything it has left. A seat with no chips left is out, and watches the rest of the match.
A miss
When the count belongs to another dau, the thrower has missed: तिर्यो. The thrower pays the seat whose dau came up as much as that seat has down, and nobody else wins or loses anything.
That ends the turn. The stakes come back off the mat, the shells pass to the next seat, and the staking starts again from nothing.
How much to stake
Each seat picks its stake when a new thrower takes the shells, from the sizes the table plays with, and never more than the thrower could pay. After that the doubling decides it.
With fair shells the game is even. A stake is won about a quarter of the time, when your own count comes up, and lost about a quarter of the time, when the thrower’s does. So no size of stake is worth more than another on average.
What the size changes is how much can happen, and the match goes to the biggest of four piles. The computer’s best players stake big, and drop to the smallest stake only when their lead is too large for the turns left to take back. Played that way they win clearly more often than players who stake the same every time.
The end of a match
To stop, as the saying goes, the shells have to reach chauka. A match here is teeya’s opening turn and then the rounds of the mat the table chose, ending as the shells come back to chauka’s seat. So teeya throws once more than the others.
A match also ends when one seat holds every chip. The biggest pile at the end wins, and a shared top pile is a draw.
The chips belong to this table and nothing else. They are not your coins. An online table with a stake settles that stake separately, the way every table here does.
At this table
When it is your turn to stake, the stake buttons wake up and show exactly what you may put down. The last of them is the most you may, which is everything you have once you are running low.
When the shells are yours, tap them on the mat or press Throw. The seat holding the shells is ringed in its colour, and each stake stands in front of the seat that put it down.
Options
Every table here plays the rules above. These are the choices a courtyard makes before the first throw.
| Setting | Standard | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Rounds of the mat | 2 | How many times the shells go round the mat after teeya’s opening turn. |
| Chips each | 200 | The pile each seat starts with. A smaller pile means more seats going out before the end. |
| Most a stake can be | 50 | The most a seat may stake when a new thrower takes the shells. The doubling can take a stake past it. |
| Least a stake can be | 5 | The least a seat may stake. Never nought, because a seat that could stake nothing would sit out once it was ahead. |
| After a hit | Stakes double | Whether the stakes double after every hit, as every account of the game has it. Off, a run of hits costs the same on every throw. |
| Difficulty | Medium | How well the computer’s seats read the match. The shells treat everybody the same. |
The words
- Kauda (कौडा)
- The game, and the shell. Cowries were once money across South Asia, and kauda is played for money at Tihar, which is why the police count it among the festival’s gambling games.
- Dau (दाउ)
- One of the four seats, also called a khal. Each is named for its number.
- Hate (हाते)
- The seat holding the shells, the one throwing.
- Maryo (मार्यो)
- A hit: the thrower’s own count came up.
- Tiryo (तिर्यो)
- A miss: another seat’s count came up, and the thrower pays it.
- Mar-taal (मार-ताल)
- The doubling of the stakes after every hit.
- Chyakhe (च्याँखे)
- Onlookers who bet on a dau without sitting at one. A real mat can draw a crowd of them. This table seats four and has none.
Every rule on this page is the one the app plays by. Change any of them on the game's own page before you start.