How to play
Bara Tehni (Bead 12)
Also known as 12 Guti, Baro Guti, Bara Guti, 12 Tehni, Twelve Beads, Alquerque de doce
- 1M+ downloads
- On Google Play since 2022
- Free to play
What is Bara Tehni (Bead 12)?
Bara Tehni is a traditional two-player strategy game played on a 5x5 grid of points joined by straight lines, with twelve pieces per player. Pieces step one point at a time along the drawn lines and capture by making a short jump over an adjacent enemy piece onto the empty point beyond it. It is the smaller sibling of Sholo Guti (16 Guti), which uses the same movement and capture ideas on a larger board with more pieces.
How to play Bara Tehni (Bead 12)
Setting up the board
The board is a 5x5 arrangement of 25 points connected by horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines; diagonals are only drawn on some points, so not every point connects in all eight directions. Each player takes 12 pieces and fills the two rows nearest them plus the two points on their side of the middle row, leaving only the centre point empty.
The rules, step by step
- Players alternate turns. On your turn you either make one plain move or one capture, never both.
- A plain move shifts one piece to an adjacent empty point along a marked line. Diagonal steps are legal only where the board actually shows a diagonal line.
- To capture, jump one adjacent enemy piece in a straight line along the board's lines and land on the empty point immediately beyond it. The jumped piece is removed at once.
- You cannot jump your own pieces, cannot jump two pieces at the same time, and cannot land on an occupied point or off the board.
- Chain jumps are allowed: if the piece that just captured can capture again from its new point, it keeps jumping in the same turn and may change direction between jumps.
- Whether capturing is compulsory varies. Classic Alquerque makes captures mandatory, while many South Asian house versions and digital adaptations treat capturing as optional. Agree which rule you are using before the first move.
- There is no forward-only restriction and no promotion or king in most versions. Every piece moves and captures in any direction the lines allow, for the whole game.
How to win
You win by capturing all of your opponent's pieces, or by leaving them with no legal move on their turn. If neither side can force further captures, players commonly award the win to whoever has more pieces left, or agree a draw.
Strategy tips
- Never leave a piece with an empty point directly behind it along a line an enemy piece can reach. Backing pieces up so the landing point is blocked is the simplest defence in the game.
- The centre point is the most valuable square on the board because more lines meet there than at most other points. Controlling it gives your pieces the widest choice of moves and threats.
- Look one jump further than the capture in front of you. An easy-looking capture often lands your piece on a point where the opponent immediately jumps it back.
- Offering a piece as bait is a standard weapon. If a tempting capture pulls an enemy piece onto a point you can chain-jump from, giving up one piece to take two is a clear gain.
- Advance as a connected block rather than pushing single pieces forward. Isolated pieces on open lines are the ones that get picked off.
Origin and history
The game belongs to the Alquerque family, a very old group of jump-capture games documented in the Middle East by around the 10th century and recorded in Europe in the 13th-century Libro de los juegos of Alfonso X of Castile.
Alquerque in its classic form is played on a board of 25 points with twelve pieces a side, which is exactly the shape of Bara Tehni.
In South Asia the family took root as folk games played on boards scratched into courtyard floors, with pebbles, seeds or tamarind stones as pieces.
It is known as Baro Guti in Bangladesh and Bara Tehni in parts of India.
Frequently asked questions
The movement and capture rules are the same; the board and piece count differ. Bead 12 uses the plain 5x5 Alquerque board of 25 points with 12 pieces a side. Bead 16, better known as Sholo Guti, adds triangular extensions to that board and gives each player 16 pieces. In practice Bead 12 plays faster and more sharply because the board is smaller and there is less room to retreat.
It depends on the version. Classic Alquerque rules make capturing compulsory, and a player who ignores an available capture can lose the offending piece. Many South Asian informal versions and app implementations make capturing optional. Neither is wrong, but the two produce quite different games, so settle it before you start.
Yes, in most versions. Unlike draughts, there is no forward-only rule and no promotion, so every piece can move and capture in any direction for the whole game. Diagonal moves are only possible along diagonals that are actually drawn on the board.
Yes. If the piece that just jumped can make another legal jump from where it landed, it continues in the same turn, and it may change direction between jumps. Every piece jumped over in the chain is removed. A single piece cannot mix a plain move with a jump in the same turn.
Not the same, but closely related. Alquerque, the family Bara Tehni belongs to, is generally regarded as an ancestor of draughts. The shared idea is the short jump capture, but Bara Tehni is played on the intersections of a lined 5x5 board rather than on the squares of an 8x8 board, movement is not restricted to one direction, and there are no kings.
