Jarmo (game)

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Jarmo is a two-player abstract strategy board game. According to Tartarian and Polish legend, Batu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, carried this game (or a variant of it) around during his military campaigns. Supposedly, he would play at least one game before a battle in order to prepare himself. In this game, a player attempts to place as many of their pieces onto the other player's first row. At the same time, the player tries to capture as many of the other player's pieces on the way.

A Jarmo variant called Jasir is played in parts of Poland, and in some eastern European countries. In fact, several variants of Jarmo and Jasir exist, but they are all fundamentally similar. Jasir means "archer" in Tartar, and the pieces used in the game are called archers. The games are sometimes collectively referred to as Halma. However, Jarmo and Jasir are not related to the Halma family of games which include Halma, Chinese Checkers, Conspirateurs, Ugolki, and Salta.

An interesting aspect of Jarmo and Jasir is that the board is asymmetric. Each player has a different view of the game from their side of the board. The lines connecting the holes are not the same for each side of the board. To make the game more fair, it is suggested that players play two games and switch sides in between. As a note, most board games have a symmetric board.