Cups was one of several games invented in 1965 by father and son Arthur Amberstone and Wald Amberstone who were both cofounders of the
New York Gamers Association (N.Y.G.A.). They also invented
Power
Power most often refers to:
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
** Abusive power
Power may a ...
, and
High Deck, a card game based on medieval society. At the time both were working as basket makers as well as
game designer
Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...
s in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. This game was first published in
A Gamut of Games
''A Gamut of Games'' is an innovative book of games written by Sid Sackson and first published in 1969. It contains rules for a large number of paper and pencil, card, and board games. Many of the games in the book had never before been publish ...
by
Sid Sackson
Sid Sackson (February 4, 1920 in Chicago – November 6, 2002) was an American board game designer and collector, best known as the creator of the business game ''Acquire''.
Career
Sackson's most popular creation is probably the business game ''Ac ...
in 1969. Wald Amberstone co-founded the Tarot School in 1995 along with his wife Ruth Amberstone. The game Cups is a contemporary two-ranked single-lap member of the ancient game family of
Mancala
The mancala games are a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some ...
.
Rules
Equipment
The Cups board is constructed from ten containers: eight small containers called cups and two large containers called pots. In addition to these, 80 beans are needed. Traditionally, the game is played with odds and ends, jars, drinking cups and assorted items serving as the beans.
Setup
Each player has four cups in front of him and a pot at the end of each row on the farthest right. Each of the player's four cups is aligned adjacent to one of the other player's four cups. Each player receives forty beans as his stock and sits across from the other player.
Play
Example Start of Game
''Lower player begins by sowing four beans from his stock left to right.''
''Higher player sows three beans from his stock right to left and captures a bean.''
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''Lower player sows the bean closest to his pot into his pot.''
Players only play on their own four cups. At the beginning of a player's turn the player has the option of doing one of two things.
* The player may remove 1, 2, 3, or 4 beans from his stock and sow them from his leftmost cup (farthest from his pot) towards his pot. Sowing, a term used in Mancala, means to place them in one by one along the line of cups.
* The player may empty one of his cups and sow the contents towards his pot. The player may only do this if the number of beans in the cup is exactly enough to reach the pot. The last bean put into the pot.
Capturing
If the player chooses option one and the last bean lands in an empty cup a capture may take place. In a capture the opponent's cup adjacent to the formerly empty cup is emptied and placed into the capturing player's pot, unless the opponents cup is empty.
Blocked cups
A blocked cup is one that contains more beans than would be needed to perform option two, sowing the beans into the pot. Generally, it is unwise to block one's cups because it makes sowing from that cup impossible.
Object
The object of Cups is to have more beans in one's pot than one's opponent. The game ends when neither player can make a move: a turn is always made if one is possible.
Variation
This game can also be played with any even number of cups. The cups are arranged in the same manner as above were each cup has one of the opponent's cup adjacent to it and a pot on each end. Ten beans are added to a player's stock for each extra cup he has. For example, if a player has ten cups he would have 100 beans and the board would consist of 22 containers.
References
*
Sackson, Sid. ''
A Gamut of Games
''A Gamut of Games'' is an innovative book of games written by Sid Sackson and first published in 1969. It contains rules for a large number of paper and pencil, card, and board games. Many of the games in the book had never before been publish ...
''. New York:
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
, 1969.
Mancala