Manqala games are played in large parts of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South-America and some parts of Europe. Bao is the variation which is found on the East African coast, and only in the Swahili speaking areas. Ways of playing Bao though differ along the coast, and de Voogt focused his research on the sophisticated variant of Zanzibar. The author deals with this Zanzibar variation of Bao in analogy to chess. The first aim of his research project was to find out what distinguishes a master of Bao from an ordinary player. Psychological methods, derived from the study of chess playing are his main methodological instruments, which make the book a remarkable study in the psychology of players, and the role of memory and calculation. His second aim is to introduce Bao to the field of computer games, comparable to computer-based chess
