बाघचाल · Nepal’s national board game
Four tigers hunt.
Twenty goats close in.
Bagh-Chal is a five-hundred-year-old game of asymmetric warfare on a 5×5 board. Play it free against a genuinely strong engine, with a coach that grades every move you make and tells you, in plain language, exactly what it changed.
- 4
- tigers
- 20
- goats
- 5
- captures to win
Against the engine
Four strengths, from a cub that grabs any loose goat to a full-depth search that plans traps many moves ahead.
Open →Two players, one device
Pass and play across a table. Optional coaching for both sides, or turn the help off entirely.
Open →Online with a friend
Create a room, share the link, play in real time. Every move is validated on the server.
Open →Learn mode
Play both sides one move at a time while the engine ranks every candidate move and explains what each is worth.
Open →A coach that explains itself
Every move is searched by the engine before and after you play it. The difference between those two evaluations is what your move actually cost — and that number, together with measurable facts about the position, is what the coach explains.
Graded, not guessed
Brilliant through blunder, derived from the win-probability your move gave up. The label comes from the search, never from a guess.
Grounded explanations
The coach is handed the facts — which goat became jumpable, how tiger mobility changed, which tiger got sealed in — and may only speak about those.
An honest advantage bar
The bar beside the board is the engine's evaluation converted to a win chance, so you can watch the game swing as it happens.
Frequently asked questions
What is Bagh-Chal?+
Bagh-Chal (बाघचाल, literally 'moving tigers') is the traditional strategy board game of Nepal. One player controls four tigers, the other twenty goats, on a five-by-five Alquerque board. It is an asymmetric hunt: the tigers try to eat goats, the goats try to fence the tigers in until none of them can move.
How do you win at Bagh-Chal?+
The tigers win by capturing five goats. The goats win by blocking every tiger so that no tiger has a single legal move left. If the same position repeats three times, or neither side makes progress for a long stretch, the game is drawn.
Who moves first in Bagh-Chal?+
The goats move first. The goat player places one goat per turn on any empty point, and cannot move a goat that is already on the board until all twenty have been placed. The tigers move or jump on every one of their turns from the start.
How do tigers capture goats?+
A tiger captures by jumping. If a goat sits on an adjacent point and the point directly beyond it along the same straight line is empty, the tiger may leap over the goat, landing beyond it and removing that goat. Only one goat can be taken per jump, and there are no chain jumps.
Is Bagh-Chal free to play here?+
Yes. Every mode — against the engine, two players on one device, online with a friend, and learn mode — is free and needs no account.
Is Bagh-Chal a fair game?+
It is asymmetric but well balanced at the top level. Careless goat play loses goats quickly, and strong goat play can shut the tigers down. Between two strong players it is usually very close, which is why the advantage bar beside the board is a useful guide.