Yoté with 10 pieces each

In standard Yoté each player starts with 12 pieces in hand. In this variant each player starts with 10, chosen as the piece count in the table setup. The board stays 5 rows of 6 squares, and every rule of play is the same: on your turn you place a piece on any empty square, step one piece to a neighbouring empty square, or jump an enemy piece, and every capture also removes a second enemy piece of your choice from the board.

With 20 pieces on 30 squares, at least ten squares stay empty even when both sides have placed everything, so the board never gets as crowded as in the standard game. Since a capture usually removes two pieces and you win when your opponent is down to one piece, five captures can be enough to win instead of six. Each exchange weighs more, and a single careless placement can decide the game.

Yoté is a traditional game of West Africa. Charles Béart recorded it in his survey Jeux et jouets de l'ouest africain, published in Dakar in 1955, as one of the most widespread gambling games in Senegal. In his description each player has 12 pieces, one side using pebbles and the other small sticks, and the board was often no more than a grid traced or dug into the ground. Later accounts, from Frederic V. Grunfeld's Games of the World (1975) to modern rule sets and boxed editions, keep 12 pieces a side.

We know of no traditional or published source for a 10-piece game. It is offered here as a shorter Yoté, for a quick game or for learning how captures and the second removal shape play, with every other rule of the standard game unchanged.