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Toguz Korgool is a Kyrgyz folk game

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The first records of this game were found in the Egyptian pyramids, about 7 thousand years old. Ancient Egyptian drawings show that the most avid players were African traders, who spent not a little free time playing the game while waiting for their cargoes or during long journeys. Thousands of years ago this game left the African continent and spread to Asia, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. The most characteristic element of mankala games is the acquisition of stones. In the Kyrgyz version of this game - toguz korgool, the player's goal is also to acquire as many korgools as possible.

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Aibek Asanbaev

9 December 2023

Toguz Korgool Game Destination History

- A fragment of a found stone board Toguz Korgool, dating back to the 4th century BC, is kept in a museum in Scotland. The game was originally intended for military training, because in order to control the troops, it is necessary to educate the mind from early childhood. Did you know that, in military schools in Japan and China, a compulsory subject of "strategic games" was introduced. An example of this is one of the oldest known among board games "Go".

- According to Asanbek Askarov, a local resident of the village of Kara-Tobo in Aksy district in Kyrgyzstan, there is a large stone in the Kazan-Tabak cave with traces of "toguz korgool". Such traces of "Toguz Korgool" are not on one stone, but on 12.

- Connoisseurs of Toguz Korgool sometimes compare this game with chess. If chess is geometry, diagonals, then toguz korgool is pure arithmetic, where you need to be able to count. In chess you can get more than 50 million positions in one second on a super-modern computer. In toguz korgool the computer will think 27 minutes for six moves ahead, three years for 7 moves ahead, and forever for 8 moves ahead. It is very difficult to calculate the options, but a human has the method of elimination and therefore always beats the computer.

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