Learn
Three real board positions, not three paragraphs. Congklak’s rules are simple to state and hard to feel — so here you are given a board and asked to find the move.
Sowing
You scoop every biji out of one hole on your row, then drop them one at a time into the holes that follow. Your lumbung sits at the end of the row, and a biji passing it falls in. Find the hole holding enough to reach it.
Pick one of the holes on the bottom row.
Lesson positions use the Congklak Umum ruleset, and deliberately hold few biji so the board reads as a diagram.
One turn, step by step
The board has 14 small holes and two lumbung — the large holes at either end. The bottom row is yours, and so is the lumbung on your left. In a full game every small hole starts with 7 biji, 98 in all. Whoever gathers the most biji in their own lumbung wins.
An example board — deliberately sparse so it reads clearly. The full game board is under Play.
The starting position. Hole 4 on your row holds 5 biji, and it is your turn. The other holes are left empty so the path is easy to follow.
Your opponent’s lumbung is always skipped — you never sow into it. This example turn stops before reaching it, so that is not shown here.