How to Play Yoté

Yote is a West African strategy game played on a 5x6 grid (5 rows, 6 columns).

The board starts completely empty. Each player has 12 pieces in reserve. Player 1 (White) moves first.

Players alternate turns placing, moving, or capturing pieces.

On your turn, you may place one piece from your reserve onto any empty cell on the board.

You do not have to place all your pieces before moving them. Deciding when to place new pieces versus moving existing ones is a key strategic choice.

Here a few pieces have already been placed on the board.

Instead of placing a new piece, you may move one of your pieces already on the board.

Pieces move one step orthogonally (up, down, left, or right) to an adjacent empty cell. Diagonal moves are not allowed.

The highlighted piece can move to any of the adjacent empty cells.

To capture, jump one of your pieces over an adjacent enemy piece and land on the empty cell directly beyond it (2 steps orthogonally).

The jumped enemy piece is removed from the board.

Here the white piece at (2,2) can jump over the black piece at (2,3), landing at (2,4) and capturing the black piece.

After making a capture, you earn a powerful bonus: you must remove one additional enemy piece of your choice from anywhere on the board.

This means every capture actually eliminates two enemy pieces -- the jumped piece and one bonus piece you select.

This bonus removal mechanic makes Yote highly aggressive. Protecting your pieces from capture is critical because losing one piece actually costs you two.

A key strategic tension in Yote is deciding when to place new pieces from your reserve versus moving pieces already on the board.

Placing keeps your reserve strong but new pieces may be vulnerable to capture. Moving lets you build formations but uses a turn that could bring reinforcements.

Keep your pieces close together to protect them. Isolated pieces are easy capture targets, and each capture costs you two pieces.