Tiger game played with forty

Meurimueng-rimueng peuet ploh is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Sumatra, Indonesia. The last part of the name, ploh, is sometimes spelled "plo". It is specifically played by the Acehnese. The game was described in The Achehnese by Hurgronje, O'Sullivan, and Wilkinson in 1906 and described on page 204.[1] It is also played in Java, Indonesia where it is called Dam-daman.[1] However, dam-daman is also a general term for draughts or checkers in Indonesia. The game is also played in India especially in Punjab where it is called Ratti-chitti-bakri. The game is basically an enlarged version of Alquerque. Four Alquerque boards are joined together to form a square consisting of 81 intersection points. The same board is used in Zamma. The rules are exactly those of Alquerque, except that captures are not compulsory. Meurimueng-rimueng peuet ploh translates to "tiger game played with forty".

Satoel is a similar game played in Simeulue island (or Simalur island) off the west coast of Sumatra. It uses the same board except two additional board sections are added on two opposite sides of the board. The board sections are triangular and cross sliced adding an additional 6 intersection points each, thus bringing the total number of intersections points to 93. Moreover, each player has 46 pieces. Setup and play is almost the same as that of Meurimueng-rimueng peuet ploh, except for a few differences which are noted in the setup and rule sections below. It was briefly described by H.J.R. Murray in A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess (1952).[2] Murray cites Edw. Jacobson's Tijdschrift Voor Indische Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde (1919) as his source, which is written in Dutch.[3]

Setup

In Meurimueng-rimueng peuet ploh, the board is composed of four Alquerque boards joined together to form a large square board consisting of 81 intersection points. There are a total of 80 game pieces, 40 black and 40 white.

In Satoel, the board is the same as that of Meurimueng-rimueng peuet ploh, but that two triangular board sections are added on opposite sides of the board such that a corner of the triangular board connects to an edge of the large square board, and specifically at the middle intersection point of the edge. Each of the triangular board sections are cross-sliced adding an additional 6 intersection points each thus increasing the total number of intersection points to 93. Each player has 46 pieces.

Each player places their pieces on the intersection points on their half of the board, and on the middle row they place their pieces to the right (from their perspective) of the central intersection point in Meurimung-rimueng peuet ploh, and to the left of the central intersection point in Satoel. This is a trivial difference however. The central intersection point is the only intersection point (or "point" here-in-forth) left vacant at the beginning of the game. In Meurimueng-meurimueng peuet ploh, the vacant central point is called the pusat (navel) in Acehnese.[1] In Satoel, players sit on opposite sides of the board from one another each with a triangular board section near him, therefore when each player fills their half of the board with their own pieces, they each fill their own triangular board section.

Players decide what color to play, and who starts first.

Rules
  • Players take turns making a move or a capture.
  • A player may move a piece (in any direction) along a marked line onto a vacant adjacent point on the board, and this ends the player's turn.
  • A player may capture an adjacent enemy piece by the short leap as in draughts and Alquerque. The player's piece must be adjacent to the enemy piece, leap over it along a marked straight line, and land onto the vacant point immediately beyond. When possible, the player's piece may continue capturing within the same turn, but a player can decide when to stop capturing and thus end the turn.
  • Captured pieces are removed from the board.
  • Capturing is not compulsory, but in Satoel it is unknown if captures are voluntary or compulsory.
  • The player who captures all of their opponent's pieces is the winner.

References
  1. Hurgronje, Christiaan Snouck; O'Sullivan, Arthur Warren Swete; Wilkinson, Richard James (1906). The Achehnese. E.J. Brill Leyden 1906. p. 204. Retrieved 2016-06-23 – via Internet Archive. meurimueng-rimueng peuet ploh.
  2. Murray, H.J.R. (1952). A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess. New York: Hacker Art Books, Inc. p. 70. ISBN 0-87817-211-4.
  3. Jacobson, Edw. (1919). Tijdschrift Voor Indische Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde. Weltevreden: Albrecht & Co. p. 10.
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