How to play
Bagh Chal
Also known as Baghchal, Bagha Chal, Tigers and Goats, Goats and Tigers, Dhun Kasa, Moving Tigers
- 1M+ downloads
- On Google Play since 2020
- Free to play
What is Bagh Chal?
Bagh Chal is a two-player abstract strategy game from Nepal in which the two sides are deliberately unequal: one player commands four tigers, the other a herd of twenty goats. The tigers try to pick off goats by jumping them, while the goats, who can never capture anything, try to smother the tigers until not one of them can move. Despite the lopsided pieces the game is well balanced - computer analysis by Lim Yew Jin and Jurg Nievergelt concluded that the standard game is a draw with perfect play on both sides.
How to play Bagh Chal
Setting up the board
The board is a 5x5 grid of 25 points where pieces sit on the intersections, connected by horizontal and vertical lines plus diagonals drawn on alternating points - so strong points such as the centre and the corners have up to eight lines running out of them, while the points between them have only four. The four tigers begin on the four corner points; none of the goats start on the board, as all twenty are held in hand. The goat player moves first.
The rules, step by step
- Placement phase: on each of their first twenty turns the goat player must drop one new goat onto any empty point. Tigers are active from the very first turn and answer each placement by moving or capturing.
- Goats already on the board may not be moved during the placement phase. A goat stays exactly where it was put until all twenty have been placed, so early placements cannot be repaired.
- A tiger's ordinary move is one step along a marked line to an adjacent empty point. Diagonal steps are only legal from points where a diagonal line is actually drawn.
- A tiger captures by jumping one adjacent goat in a straight line along a marked line and landing on the empty point immediately beyond it; the jumped goat is removed from the game for good.
- Only one goat may be taken per jump. Tigers cannot jump two goats at once, cannot jump another tiger, and cannot chain multiple jumps in a single turn. Capturing is optional, never compulsory.
- Movement phase: once all twenty goats are on the board, the goat player switches to moving one goat per turn, one step along a line to an adjacent empty point. Goats can never jump and never capture - blocking is their only weapon.
- Players alternate turns throughout. If one tiger is boxed in, the tiger player simply moves a different tiger. Most rule sets add a repetition rule after placement to stop endless shuffling.
How to win
Tigers win by capturing enough goats. Five captured goats is the standard threshold in published rules and in almost every computer implementation, though it is a balance convention rather than an ancient fixed number, so it is worth agreeing the target before play. Goats win by total blockade - on the tiger player's turn, all four tigers must be immobilised at once, with no tiger having an empty adjacent point to step to and no legal jump available.
Strategy tips
- Goats: never leave a goat next to a tiger when the point directly beyond it, in line, is empty. That is a free capture, and it is how most goat players lose in the first ten moves.
- Goats: place and advance in connected blocks. A goat with a friendly goat directly behind it cannot be jumped, because the tiger has nowhere to land.
- Goats: your first twenty moves are irreversible, so build from the edges and back ranks inward rather than dropping lone goats into the open centre.
- Tigers: fight for the strong points, especially the centre. Every extra line running out of a point is another escape route and another direction you can jump in.
- Tigers: set up double threats so the goats cannot block both, and do not grab every capture on offer. A greedy jump that parks a tiger in a corner is exactly what the goat player wants.
Origin and history
Bagh Chal comes from Nepal, where the name means roughly tiger's move in Nepali; Newar speakers know it as dhun kasa, tiger game.
It has traditionally been played on grids scratched into dirt or stone using pebbles and stones as pieces, and is still played in rural parts of the country, though it is widely reported to be in decline as a living tradition.
The board itself is an alquerque board, the same 5x5 point pattern that underlies a family of hunt games found across South Asia and beyond.
It is frequently described as a national game of Nepal in the cultural sense, although the country's officially declared national sport since 2017 is volleyball.
Frequently asked questions
Five, in the standard game - that is the threshold given by most rule sites and by virtually every digital version. It is a balancing convention chosen because once five goats are gone the herd rarely has the numbers left to complete a blockade. A minority of sources state instead that the tigers must capture all the goats, so confirm the setting before a serious game.
No. Goats never jump and never capture anything - not tigers, not other goats. Jumping is exclusively a tiger move. A goat can only step one point along a line to an adjacent empty intersection, and only after the placement phase is over. The goats' entire game is blocking.
No. During the placement phase the goat player's only legal action is to drop one new goat on an empty point, and goats already on the board are frozen. Only when the twentieth goat has been placed does the goat player begin moving pieces. Tigers, by contrast, move and capture normally from the first turn.
By complete immobilisation. The goats win the moment the tiger player has no legal move at all - every one of the four tigers must be surrounded so that it has no empty adjacent point and no goat it can legally jump. Remember that a tiger next to a goat is only blocked if the landing point beyond that goat is occupied.
They are close relatives, not the same game. Aadu Puli Aattam (Tamil) and Puli Meka (Telugu) are South Indian tiger-hunt games built on the same predator-and-prey idea. The differences are concrete: those versions are typically played with three tigers and up to fifteen goats on a triangular board, while Bagh Chal uses four tigers and twenty goats on the 5x5 alquerque grid.
