Getting to know Yut Nori, a traditional Korean game played during Seollal New Year

Seollal is an opportunity for the whole family to have fun activities together. The most common activity is yunnori, a board game played by throwing four wooden sticks. The game is so easy to learn that all family members, regardless of age, can play. Yunnori is played by throwing four sticks and moving your playing pieces around the board depending on the number of sticks facing up. Each team has four pieces and the first team to get all four pieces wins.

If you like playing monopoly or snakes and ladders, you will definitely want to try the Yut Nori game from Korea. Yut Nori is an ancient Korean game that is hundreds of years old. The word Yut means stick while the word Nori is a game.

The Yut Nori game is most played by Korean families on Korean New Year or Seollal. The dates for Korean New Year are based on the lunar calendar and usually coincide with Chinese New Year. Unlike the Western New Year, Seollal is celebrated for 3 days.

This game can be played by all ages. so you can imagine the popularity of Yut Nori for the Korean people when the Korean New Year arrives. So how does Yut Nori's game actually look like? Basically Yut Nori is like a monopoly. But instead of using dice like modern games, Yut Nori uses four wooden sticks (Yut sticks) which have one plain flat side and one round side with pictures and tokens whose number is adjusted to the number of players. If the token is lost or incomplete, it can be replaced with buttons, stones, coins or marbles.

The way to play Yut Nori is quite simple. Take four sticks in one hand and let them fall around a cloth game board called Malpan. Malpan itself consists of 29 stations or stops. These stations can be either square or round configurations. The round geometric shape of the Yut Nori game board is symbolic of the solar system. The large station in the center shows the North Star with 28 stations around it marking the constellations. At the crossroads in malpan, there are 5 stations which are bigger than the others. When the player token lands on one of these stations, the player can take a shortcut through the center of the board.

Yut Nori can be played by two players or two teams. Players sit down and enter from on the same side of the board. The player's token is moved in a counter-clockwise direction.

How to Read a Yut Stick

To determine who went first, each player threw 4 sticks of Yut. The result of the throw of the stick will determine the number of steps you take in Malpan.

Here's how to read it:

1 flat side on top = token moves 1 step. This is called a pig or Do.

2 flat sides on top = token moves 2 steps. These are called dogs or Gae.

3 flat sides on top = token moves 3 steps. This is called a sheep or geol.

4 flat sides on top = token moves 4 steps. This is called a cow or Yut.

4 round sides at the top = token moves 5 steps. This is called a horse or Mo.

Now, the player with the throw that makes the most number of moves can start first.

If a player gets Yut or Mo (moves 4 or 5 steps), then that player will get another stick throw. There is no limit to the number of Yut or Mo that can be done consecutively. But you need to be careful and have a mature strategy in playing Yut Nori. If your opponent lands on the station occupied by your token, then he has the right to knock him out of Malpan. The result is that you have to start all over again. One interesting thing, in this Yut Nori game, you don't have to go to jail or lose property like in monopoly games. The Yut Nori winner is the player who manages to get all tokens across all stations.

 

Source : https://www.visitkorea.or.id/article/perayaan-seollal-di-korea-sekilas-tentang-budaya-lokal , https://kumparan.com/noviyanti-nurmala1519197736585/mengenal-yut-nori-permainan-kuno-korea/full