Kaudaकौडा

The shells and the khal

Kauda is played with sixteen cowrie shells. A cowrie has a smooth, rounded back and a flat side with a toothed slit, its mouth. Only the shells that land with the mouth facing up count.

Four places round the mat are called khal, and each is named after a number: tiya (3), chauka (4), panja (5) and chhakka (6). Each player sits at one. With five or six players the places repeat round the table, so the fifth player sits at tiya and the sixth at chauka.

Reading a throw

Count the mouths up and count on round the four khal: 3 is tiya, 4 chauka, 5 panja, 6 chhakka, then 7 is tiya again, 8 chauka, and so on up to 16. A throw of 0, 1 or 2 counts the same way from the other end: 0 is chauka, 1 panja, 2 chhakka.

• Tiya: 3, 7, 11 or 15 mouths up.
• Chauka: 0, 4, 8, 12 or 16.
• Panja: 1, 5, 9 or 13.
• Chhakka: 2, 6, 10 or 14.

If every shell lands either way as often, chauka comes up a little more often than the others (about 25.2 throws in 100, against 25 for tiya and panja and 24.8 for chhakka), because it also takes the rare all-up and all-down throws.

Who throws

The thrower, the hate, holds the bank for his throw. Tiya throws first. When the thrower loses his throw, the shells pass to the next player round the table.

A player who could not pay at least one chip to every other player passes the shells on without throwing.

Staking

Before each throw, every player except the thrower puts chips on one khal, all at the same time. Back your own khal, or any other one, but never the thrower's.

• Stake at least 5 chips and at most 50.
• Never more than the thrower could pay if every stake won: his chips shared between the players staking.
• If you have fewer chips than the least stake, you stake all of them.

Paying out

If the count falls on the thrower's own khal, he has struck: he takes every stake on the mat and throws again.

If it falls on another khal, the thrower pays everyone who backed that khal chip for chip: they get their chips back and the same again from him. Everyone else takes their stake back, and the shells pass to the next player.

If nobody backed the khal that came up, no chips change hands and the shells pass on.

A winning streak

While the thrower keeps striking, the stakes double: after one win everyone must stake at least 10 chips (up to 100), after two wins at least 20, and so on, doubling up to five times. When his streak ends the stakes go back to normal.

How the game ends

A round ends when the shells have gone once round the table and come back to the first thrower. After the last round (five, unless you choose three or ten) the player with the most chips wins. The game ends sooner if only one player has chips left.

Players level at the top share the win; if everyone is level it is a draw.

Play chips only

Kauda has long been part of Laxmi Puja and the nights of Tihar, and many families still throw the shells once for luck. Played for real stakes it is gambling, which is against the law in Nepal, and every Tihar the police report raids on kauda games. People have lost savings and land to it.

This table uses play chips only. They cannot be bought or traded and disappear when the game ends. The game here is the shells, the count and the fun of the table.

Where these rules come from

Kauda has no rulebook and few written accounts, so this table follows the ones that describe the game in detail and notes where they leave gaps:

• Sixteen cowries, the four khal and the count of mouths up: Republica's features "Kauda temptations", "Illegal inclinations" and "Juwako khaal", a 2014 Nepali blog on the rules of kauda, and an app description; every Nepali source gives sixteen shells.
• Which count belongs to which khal: the sources state 4 and 0 and 16 for chauka, 5 for panja, 6 for chhakka and 7 for tiya, and say the places repeat in order. Counting on round the four khal is the only reading that fits all of them; no source writes out a full table.
• The thrower takes every stake when his khal comes up, and pays the winning khal chip for chip otherwise: Republica and the blog. One app says the thrower "pays double the bet", which most likely means the same thing.
• Doubled stakes during a streak are compulsory in the blog's rules; you can switch this off.
• Tiya throws first: the blog and the app.
• The sources do not say what happens to the stakes on the two khal that neither struck nor won. Here they go back to their owners, which keeps every throw fair.
• Outsiders (chyankhe) traditionally bet on any khal but the thrower's. At this table everyone may do the same, so up to six people can play.
• The base stake, the 50-chip limit, the 100 starting chips and the rule that the thrower must be able to cover every stake are this table's own.

Stakes stay the same

Turn off the doubling and the least stake stays at 5 chips however long the thrower's streak lasts.

Shorter or longer games

Choose three, five or ten rounds. Each round gives every player a turn with the shells.