Rules of Bagha Chal  Tigers and Goats 

The National Game of Nepal

Two Person Strategy Game.

Setup:
The game is played on a board as depicted to on the desktop. The pieces are positioned at the intersection of 
lines and move along the lines rather than across the lines. At the start of the game only the Tiger's pieces are in 
play. The Tiger player has four pieces. One is placed at each corner. The Goat player starts with 20 pieces, none 
of which are in play at the beginning of the game.  

Object Tigers:
The object for the Tiger player is to eat the Goats. The Tiger must eat 8 Goats to win. 

Object Goats:
The object of the game for the goats is to put the Tigers into a position in which they cannot move. 

Game Play:
The game begin with the first goat being placed on the board. 
There are two phases in the Game. In the first phase the Goat player places his/her Goats on the board. The phase 
ends when all 20 Goats have been placed on the board or someone wins. In the second phase the Goat player 
tries to move his/her goats to block all the Tigers. In both phases the Tiger player attempts to have his/her Tigers 
eat Goats. The second phase ends when someone wins. 

The Goat player cannot move any Goats, during the first phase. He/She is forced always to place Goats until this 
phase is over. That means that if a goat is being threatened by a Tiger the only way the Goat player can save the 
Goat is by placing another Goat. 

Pieces move along lines. The Tiger player has two possible types of move. They can move or they can take a 
Goat. To take a Goat, a Tiger must be able jump over the Goat piece (like checkers). Tigers can only jump in a 
straight line. Goats defend against being taken by having no open places for Tigers to land. 

The Goat player cannot simply go back and forth with the same peace to end up in a stalemate by this means. 
That means that if you move a Goat from place A to place B , then on the next turn the Goat player cannot move 
from B to A. 

The rules are modified of Paul Smereks rules of 1999 (http://home.istar.ca/~smerek/bagha-chal/rules.htm)


