A STONE’S throw from the presidential palace in Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo, men sit for hours playing fanorona – a cross between chequers and chess – on wooden boards with black and white pieces.

Centuries after fanorona first appeared on the Indian Ocean island nation, it still exerts its grip on players of all ages and from all walks of life.

Men hunch over their “lakapanorona” boards in concentration, while children use playing surfaces traced into the dirt of their schoolyards, grappling with the game’s nearly infinite moves.

The goal of the two-player game is to remove or block the opponent’s pieces by moving one’s counters towards – called “approach moves” – or away from the rival’s counters – “withdrawals”.

All of the opponent’s pieces left in an uninterrupted line are then removed from the board, bringing the player a step closer to victory.

Fanorona is an extended version of Western chequers or Go, popular in the Far East, using a rectangular board marked with lines and intersections in which each player starts with 22 pieces.

The aim is to take the opponent’s pieces by moving backwards or forwards along the lines of the game board – before entirely encircling the other player’s counters.

“A single piece can land multiple blows, and a single blow can remove between one and seven of the opponent’s pieces,” says Lantohariseta Andriamampianona, technical director of the revered fanorona association.

Another quirk of the game is that the winner goes into a second round of play, known as the vela, with a handicap.

There are multiple theories about how the game came to enchant the island.

Some believe that fanorona was the brainchild of Indonesian settlers.

Others swear that the game traces its roots to the 17th century and the first Arab traders to reach Madagascar’s shores.

But some insist that the game was born in the Malagasy royal court as a strategic tool to help military leaders plan tactics.

Such is the game’s widespread appeal that an electronic version for mobile phones was launched four years ago – one of the first video games developed entirely on the island. – AFP, September 13, 2018.