HIJARA VS SITTUYIN

Hijara is a two-player abstract strategy board game played with small stones. It has been likened to a three-dimensional game on a two-dimensional board. The game was designed by Martin H. Samue| and first printed, as Excel, by American Airlines in their inflight magazine, American Way, on December 24, 1985 and July 22, 1986. It has been sold commercially as Eclipse in 1994, and Hijara (the Arabic word for small stones) in 1995, 2003 and 2006. The original commercial edition of Hijara has a game board of 16 squares, divided into 4 sections numbered 1 through 4 and a score-keeping "ladder" on either end. Players choose either yellow or blue and use 32 same-color stones plus one score-keeper each. Blue starts and players take turns placing their stones, one at a time, on any square, building on those already on the board, to complete and block point-scoring combinations. When a player places a stone on a square, it must be placed in the lowest-numbered open section in that square. So, for every square, the first small stone must be placed on the 1, second on the 2, etc. The game starts with an empty board, and ends with a full board with 3 ways to score points when placement of four same-color stones is completed in any of the following combinations: 10 points - 4 stones of the same color on 4 numbers of a kind in a row - horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. 15 points - 4 stones of the same color in numerical sequence (i.e. 1-2-3-4) - horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. 20 points - 4 stones of the same color in one square. Points are won with a player's own-color stones and are always accrued, never deducted. Several point-scoring combinations may be completed at one time with a single stone. Overlooked points are forfeited and, throughout the game, players keep score on their side of the board with an extra stone of their color. The game is over when the last small stone is placed and all the numbers are covered then, by comparing accrued points totals, the player with the greater number of points is the winner of the game.

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Sittuyin (Burmese: စစ်တုရင်), also known as Burmese chess, is a variant of chess that is a direct offspring of the Indian game of chaturanga which arrived in 8th century AD. Sit is the modern Burmese word for army or war ; the word sittuyin can be translated as representation of the four characteristics of army—chariot, elephant, cavalry and infantry. In its native land the game has been largely overshadowed by Western (international) chess, although it remains popular in the northwest regions. The sittuyin board consists of 64 squares, 8 rows and 8 columns, without alternating colors. It also consists of two diagonal lines across the board known as sit-ke-myin (general's lines). Only feudal lords (pawns) are on the board in the initial position. The game starts with the Red player (depicted here having white pieces), followed by the Black player, placing their other pieces arbitrarily on their own halves of the board (known as sit-tee or troops deployment): chariots can be put on any square on the back rank. In official tournaments, a small curtain is used on the middle of the board to prevent the players seeing each other's deployment during the sit-tee phase. One of the possible game openings is shown in the diagram. Feudal lords promote to general when they reach diagonal lines marked on the board. The promotion is possible only if that player's general has been captured. If the player has a feudal lord on a promotion square and his or her general is no longer on the board, the player can (if he or she wishes to) promote the feudal lord to general instead of making a move. A feudal lord which passes the promotion square cannot promote anymore.

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