Talk:Sáhkku

Some issues of nomenclature (Describing the dice and the board)
I recommend changing some of the terms used. [First, background: most abstract game boards may be classified as either areal (played on the areas formed by a grid, e.g. Chess) or reticular (played on the intersections of lines, e.g. Go, most Merrels).] This article currently seems to use "fields" for the locations defined by reticular boards, and "tiles" for those defined by areal boards. This is not idiomatic American English (and I'm pretty sure not idiomatic British English, either). For an areal board, we'd typically say "squares" or "spaces" or "cells". But Sáhkku is (at least usually appears to be) played on a reticular board -- although I've seen the word "intersections" used for these locations, it's very long and fussy, and I believe "points" is by far the best term. Furthermore, "points" is the word always used to describe the locations in Backgammon, which bears some superficial similarity to the Sáhkku board.

Obviously, terms that are special to Sáhkku may be used and defined (as has already been done in several other cases), but I assume that "field" and "tile" are not special to Sáhkku, but rather meant to be general gaming terms.

In English, terms for types or shapes of dice or lots -- especially unusual traditional ones -- are pretty chaotic. However, I surmise that "rolling-pin" is a perfectly good Scandinavian term that just doesn't work for dice when translated into English. Personally, I prefer "long dice", but since there is already a Wikipedia entry for barrel dice this is probably our best option. Or we might combine both with long dice. Actually, I've just now updated and moved this page to Long dice (but we'll see if that lasts!). Phil wink (talk) 19:57, 22 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Agreed that "points" and "squares" should be used in place of "fields" and "tiles", since these terms are used on the articles about Go, Backgammon, Nine Men's Morris and Chess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.91.198.127 (talk) 12:25, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * As for the term "roling pin", it's just a way to describe the shape. In an article by P. Michaelsen (see link) the sáhkku and daldøs dice are referred to as "stick dice" . That doesn't have an article, though... "Long dice" is probably entirely correct, and could be used, but the shape of the dice need to be described somehow, since just "long" or "stick" dice isn't all that descriptive in itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.91.198.127 (talk) 12:40, 24 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm half Norwegian (by fairly distant ancestry... never been there) so I've heard plenty of "Norwegian jokes" -- and a Norwegian using a square rolling pin sounds like one of them. If I have some time, I might be able to make a passable diagram, and the text should indeed describe the dice -- say, as slightly elongated cubes (or square prisms) with little pyramids on the shorter ends to prevent landing on them. But likening them to a cylinder with handles (this is my experience of a rolling pin, even while making lefse) is anti-descriptive.


 * Regarding the term "stick dice": Not only Michaelsen, but even Irving Finkel uses this term, so I'm bound to accept it as appearing in the literature. However I personally dislike it, because I feel it creates confusion between what I call "long dice" (what we're talking about) and what I call "throwing staves" which are long 2-sided lots (often a round stick split down the middle) seen in traditional Native American, Arab, ancient Egyptian and Chinese games, and I trust many others. Cheers. Oh, and remember to sign your talk page comments with ; Wikipedians like that. Phil wink (talk) 18:11, 24 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I guess the comparison to a rolling pin is actually a bit misleading, now that you say it. I think I just found it described like that on the page for daldøs, which uses rather similar dice, and never questioned it. A diagram would probably be the best way to go, since these things are fairly difficult to describe. If you have the time to do that, it would improve the article greatly. 88.91.198.127 (talk) 07:29, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, after uploading this die image, I realize that I've somewhat "daldøs-ized" it, by making the marks into Roman numerals, which, according to the images in Borvo, are not really appropriate. I hope to fix this in time, but for now, hopefully this is better than nothing. Merry Christmas. Phil wink (talk) 18:39, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Great work. Merry Christmas to you too. 88.91.198.127 (talk) 09:39, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

More clarifications desired

 * 1) I'd like to see a pronunciation key. As near as I can tell, "Sáhkku  is a ..." is about right, but surely the recent editor(s) will know much better than I.
 * 2) We'll need a sentence or 2 on the movement of the king in Essence of the game:The king.
 * 3) Likewise a clarification of the path... presumably under Essence of the game:The soldiers. (I'll probably make a graphic for this too, as it's helpful to see it.)
 * 4) History should incorporate a summary of the information in Depaulis's article (link in References).
 * 5) More citations are always welcome. I suspect that too many game articles on Wikipedia are just some guy's house rules; this article isn't, and we can prove it.

I can eventually get to this stuff, but I'm quite lazy, and (recent IP editor(s):) you've been doing such good work that maybe you want to keep going? Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 16:37, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Cheers, and thanks. I have now tried to address #2 and #3 in the text. Will get back to the others when there's time. Misha bb (talk) 23:09, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Regarding #1: The system you refer to appears to be made for English words, and is as such ill-suited to explain how words in Sámi are pronounced. I don't think it's possible to correctly render the final "u" in sáhkku by using that system. I'm no expert in  IPA for North Sámi, but I think that would simply be /sahkku/, which doesn't give much more information than the official spelling... I guess the closest approximation for an English-speaker would be to say "sack", but with preaspiration before the "ck", and then finish with a short version of the "ous" from the word "rendezvous". Don't know if that was helpful or just really confusing, but it's the best I can do...Misha bb (talk) 16:21, 29 December 2015 (UTC)178.74.41.163 (talk) 15:56, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, and stress on the first syllable (sack), as in all Uralic languages Misha bb (talk) 11:47, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I've made a start on the history section, but it's still a stub. Will get back to this.
 * I've written in some data on history that I've gathered from various articles. However, there's a problem withe code. Apparently a "/ref" is missing. Unfortunately, I have to run, and I haven't found the missing tag yet. To whoever reads this: please don't revert, but try and help finding the missing tag or wrong piece of code.Misha bb (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Found it. Still needs some language editing though. Will get back to.Misha bb (talk) 14:47, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow. LOTS going on! I'm preoccupied with stuff elsewhere, but I hope to have a chance to review this in the next week or two. Thanks. Phil wink (talk) 21:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * #5 has yet to be addressed, i.e. linking specific rules with specific pages in the articles. I will get back to this, but don't know when I'll get the time. I suspect maybe in a month or so... Misha bb (talk) 12:55, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Have begun systematic comparison of rules listed by Friis, Borvo and Michaelsen. This seems to necessitate some rewriting of the "standard" rules. The most vital thing is that "locking pieces" is not in any way part of the standard rules, that rule is only documented as being used in one village (the one visited by Borvo), while it is not mentioned anywhere else. For players, this is a good thing. Lockability makes the game extremely unbalanced in favor of the first player to successfully move the king to the enemy row. I'll address this matter after work today, this is an error that can't be allowed to stay on the page for long...Misha bb (talk) 11:47, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Had time after work, managed to do a rewrite and include sources. #5 should now be addressed.Misha bb (talk) 17:43, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Update: Performed necessary language editing and code fixing.Misha bb (talk) 20:56, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

A vexing problem (Where have pieces been in the past?)
As I began work on a "path" diagram, I realized that Sahkku (at least as described in Borvo) has a vexing problem (which I've also encountered elsewhere). Take a Sahkku board with these numbered spaces:

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15

If my home is row 01-15, then (according to Borvo) I move in the path 01-15, 15-16, 16-30, 30-31, 31-45, 45-16, 16-30, 30-01 ... (and I assume I continue in a figure-8 pattern, though this is not absolutely explicit in Borvo -- it's conceiveable that somehow my pieces just stay stuck back on their home row, but this would be shocking in a running-fight game). This same path is implied as the norm in the current article's Ráisá sáhkku section, when it states that the variant only continues to circle around the 2 larger-numbered rows, never returning home -- as opposed to the figure-8 pattern which it implies is the norm. Now, the Ráisá path makes sense to me. This is analogous to the Daldos path, and more or less analogous to Tab. But the "norm" drives me nuts: I may have several identical pieces on the middle row, some of which must go from 30 to 31, some of which must go from 30 to 01 based on where they've been in the past. I need an exact memory, not just of the history of all my own pieces to determine which way they go, but also of my opponent's pieces to catch infringements. Any disagreement is utterly unresolvable without video playback.

This leads me to question whether Borvo's (and I suppose Friis's) description of the path is really accurate. Can a game with such a built-in unresolvable conundrum really have thrived for centuries? Or am I just missing something?

Can anyone with personal experience, or access to other sources (I can only read English) shed light on this problem? Thanks! Phil wink (talk) 19:16, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * It is correct, as far as I’ve gathered from the sources, that normal gameplay involves moving the pieces in an 8-pattern which continues indefinitely.


 * If the pieces are round, or in some other way lack an identifiable “front” and “back” side, it can indeed be troublesome to remember if a piece is currently treading what we may call the type A path across the middle row (i.e. going up into the enemy row) or the type B path across the middle row (i.e. going down into the home row).


 * When playing the game in real life, it soon became clear that it was a definite advantage to use pieces that have a marked “front”. We have the fronts turned towards the direction the piece is moving when it is moving across the home row, treading the type A path across the middle row, and when it is moving across the enemy row. When a piece begins to tread the type B path on the middle row, we turn its front towards the home row to signify this.


 * In the same manner, we mark pieces as unactivated by having them turned so that the fronts face the middle row.


 * Did they do something akin to this in the olden days? It’s hard to tell from the written sources. But in my opinion, it gets so confusing to not have any indication as to whether a piece is treading path A or B, that I believe players must have had some way to signify it.


 * Note that in the picture illustrating this article, the “women” do in fact have a visible “front” (the direction that the hooked hat points). The “men” don’t seem to have it, although it is possible that some symbol has been cut into one of the sides, and that the camera simply hasn’t caught it. That is, however, speculation. In Borvo, pieces depicted on page 37 have notches cut into them on some of the sides, but not on all. But again, we do not know anything about whether or not differences between the sides of the pieces were in fact used to signify the direction they were heading.


 * All I can say for sure is that when actually playing the game, we’ve found it to be a great advantage to use pieces with a marked “front”, in the manner described above, to avoid confusion and disagreement. Misha bb (talk) 10:55, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Note, by the way, that the way tâb is described, that game suffers a related problem:
 * “A piece moving to a square occupied by one or more friendly pieces is placed on top of those, and they move as one piece thereafter. If such a stack moves to a row where one of the pieces has been before, the stack is reduced to just one piece, the other pieces being removed from the board.“Misha bb (talk) 10:56, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Great information. Thanks. we'll definitely work that in. I'm acutely aware of the Tab problem -- by chance, about a month ago, I finally started working on a paper which will attempt to solve (not certainly of course, merely probabalistically) what turns out to be several subtle interrelated problems, including the one you mentioned. This is why, when I started on Sahkku, I thought "MY GOD! IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!" I should have guessed the turning bit, though, as Daldos has turning (just for activation of course). Thanks again. Phil wink (talk) 16:05, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Latin translation
I've tracked down a Latin version of Lapponia (see here and posted an image of the first mention of sáhkku dice. Hoewever, I don't actually know Latin, so my Google-powered attempt at translating the description is probably awful. Help from people who know how to read Latin is greatly appreciated. Misha bb (talk) 11:36, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I trust you're already aware of the English translations, but in case not: & . Phil wink (talk) 21:10, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oops. I misread your post above. I thought you were referring to Lachesis lapponica. So presumably my helpful links are totally unhelpful. Oh well... Phil wink (talk) 22:41, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the interesting link in any case B-) Misha bb (talk) 11:32, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Rules in sáhkku sets sold today
I'm not even going to bother putting this in the article, since it's probably going to be taken down immediately since it refers to commercial websites instead of articles etc, so I'll put what I find here.


 * This is basically Gussanjárga sáhkku, i.e. the version described by Borvo 2001. The diagram indicates that "forced-pattern activation" is not in use here. X is here given the value 1 instead of 5, also when not used to activate.


 * On the face of it, so is this, but there are so many innovations in the rule set that this is essentially a different variant.
 * (1) A soldier cannot capture an opposing soldier directly upon activation;
 * (2) When recruiting the king, the recruiting piece stays with (on top?) of the king and is moved together with it, to show to whom the king now belongs. This piece is captured when the king is recruited by the other party.
 * (3) No other soldier than the "marking" piece is allowed on the same field as the king.
 * (4) When a soldier reaches the end of the enemy row, it is transported back to the beginning of its home row and keeps walking from there. However, if the leftmost field in the home row is still occupied by an inactive soldier, it must wait until that field has been vacated before it is allowed to move in.
 * (5) An active piece cannot inhabit the same field as an inactive soldier. In consequence, a soldier is locked if it reaches a row of inactive soldiers in the enemy line which is so long that it cannot get past them by the value of one dice throw. Both the blocking and the blocked pieces are locked.
 * (6) The rulebook suggests a variant in which stacked pieces can be moved together.
 * The rulebook operates with "forced-pattern activation".
 * Initially, it seems like the rules indicate X means activation and nothing else (neither 1 nor 5). However, later in the rules it is mentioned that it is possible to move 1 ahead, even though the dice only show X-II-III-0, so X appears to be 1.

Other points of note:
 * None of the versions I've found so far attempt to reconstruct or invent rules for king's children.
 * Some sellers of game sets emphasize the alternate name "the devil's game" - or le jeu du diable since for some reason many of these boards and game sets are made in France. The game's "bad name" has ironically become a selling point, it appears. See particularly the board that has le jeu du diable engraved proudly on the side.
 * Some of the sellers mistakenly (?) refer to it as a Medieval game.Misha bb (talk) 13:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * One seller is marketing the game, with a fairly oddly designed board at that, as a Russian (!) game from the 1200s (!!). Misha bb (talk) 10:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Moving Ohcejohka sáhkku to "talk"
The rules for the "Ohcejohka sáhkku" are unclear and incomplete, and need further research. Until such further research appears, the incomplete rule set is put here. The same could be said for "Gussanjárga sáhkku", but this rule set is more complete and is retained on the main page to contrast with Ráisa sáhkku.

Ohcejohka sáhkku
The following variant is attested from the Ohcejohka region of Finnish Lapland.
 * Upon further investigation, this rule set appears to combine elements from Inari and Ohcejohka.

Board and setup
It is possible, but not certain, that in the starting position, the first square (from the player's perspective) was left open.

Dice
Dice have the numbers X-II-III-IIII. When a player throws X, they get to throw the die that showed X again, after they have used the sáhkku as they please. The sáhkku-giving dice(s) continue to be thrown again until it lands on another value than X.
 * This rule appears to be incorrectly reproduced in the source referred to. Looking into this.

The soldiers' movement
The path of the soldiers is identical to that of the pieces in daldøs: towards the player's left in their home row, towards the right in the middle row, towards the left in the enemy row, and do not return to the home row, but instead keep walking in a circle in the middle and enemy row.
 * Actually, the path is described as somewhat different than this.

The king
The king can be captured and removed from the board, like the ordinary soldiers.

Moving Gussanjárga sáhkku to "talk"
Unfortunately, it is becoming clear that this variant has been incorrectly written down. This concerns among other things, but not exclusively, the locking mechanism. This is oarticuarly problematic since rule sets produced on the continent appear to base themselves on this misunderstood Gussanjárga rule set, which does not accurately reflect the actual Gussanjárga rules. Still, the erroneous rule set has historical value because the French rule sets are based on it. Instead of deleting it, I'm moving it here.

Gussanjárga sáhkku
The following variant has been described as played in the village of Gussanjárga in Davvesiida municipality, Finnmark. The variant rules presented here were written down around the turn of the millennium. The description of this rule set is not complete, but is included here in order to, together with the Ráisá variant, showcase the span of sáhkku variations.

Opening
The players begin by seeing who first manages to get three sáhkku in three consecutive throws. When doing this, the dice that have landed on sáhkku are set aside before the next throw. The player who first gets three sáhkku in this manner plays first. Instead of going directly into normal game play, a starting round occurs in which the player can choose if they want to activate the foremost soldier and move it three points ahead, or activate the three foremost soldiers and move each one point ahead, or activate two of the three foremost soldiers and move these two and one points ahead respectively.

The king
The king moves as described in the rules under (C).

Capturing
Inactive soldiers cannot be captured.

Locking soldiers
It is possible to "lock" some of the opposing player's soldiers. This happens when a player places one of his soldiers, or the recruited king, on the point immediately in front of an inactive piece of the opposing player's. This inactive soldier, and other inactive soldiers standing in row behind it, is now "locked" — it is not possible to activate them until the locking piece is removed. Locked soldiers cannot be captured, but if a player loses all their active soldiers, and all their inactive soldiers are locked, the player has lost the game. The rule set is somewhat lacking in its description of the locking rule. For example, it does not mention what happens if the row of soldiers is broken before a lock occurs - if one soldier in the middle of the row which now has a locking piece in front of it has been previously activated, the rules are silent regarding whether or not the soldiers behind the "hole" in the row are also locked, or if these are now free to activate and move.

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 * Sáhkku friis.png