What is Royal Game of Ur on the Masters route?
On the Masters route your pieces start the same way as in the standard game: up your own lane to the corner rosette, then along the shared middle row. Instead of running the whole middle row and turning back into your own lane, they leave the middle row at the small block, cross onto the rosette in your opponent's lane, go round the small block and finish on the rosette in your own lane, beside the gap. The path is 16 squares long, and an exact throw that would take a piece to the 17th step bears it off.
Two things change. The rosettes fall on every fourth square of the path: the 4th, 8th, 12th and 16th. And the small block is no longer private: both players' pieces run round it in the same direction, so the end of the race becomes a head-to-head fight in which pieces can be caught almost until they leave the board.
The dice, the extra throw on a rosette, the safety of rosettes and the rest of the standard rules stay as they are.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Royal Game of Ur | Royal Game of Ur on the Masters route |
|---|---|---|
| Route | Standard Royal Game of Ur14 squares: four up your own lane, the eight squares of the middle row, then two back in your own lane. | Royal Game of Ur on the Masters route16 squares: four up your own lane, seven along the middle row, then round the small block through your opponent's lane, the end of the middle row and your own lane. |
| Bearing off | Standard Royal Game of UrAn exact throw to the 15th step. | Royal Game of Ur on the Masters routeAn exact throw to the 17th step. |
| Rosettes on the path | Standard Royal Game of UrThree: the 4th, 8th and 14th squares. | Royal Game of Ur on the Masters routeFour, on every fourth square: the 4th, 8th, 12th and 16th. |
| Where pieces meet | Standard Royal Game of UrOnly on the eight squares of the middle row. | Royal Game of Ur on the Masters routeOn the last twelve squares of the path: the middle row and the whole small block. |
| Safe squares | Standard Royal Game of UrA piece on a rosette cannot be captured; only the middle rosette lies on squares both players use. | Royal Game of Ur on the Masters routeThe same rule, but three rosettes now lie on shared squares: the middle one and both lane rosettes of the small block. |
| Dice and other rules | Standard Royal Game of UrFour binary dice, an extra throw on every rosette, seven pieces. | Royal Game of Ur on the Masters routeThe same, with five or seven pieces. The Masters route is not used with Bell's rules, which have their own route. |
History
No ancient source shows which way the pieces travelled on the Ur board, so every route is a reconstruction. The route of the standard game, up your own side, along the middle row and back into your own side of the small block, is the one R. C. Bell published and Irving Finkel favours. Its rosettes are not evenly spaced along the path.
The games historians H. J. R. Murray and James Masters both argued for paths that put a rosette on every fourth square. Murray suggested a long path of 27 squares that goes round the small block and back down the middle. James Masters proposed a shorter path of 16 squares, the 17th step bearing off, that leaves the board beside the gap. He also found the special protection given by the single middle rosette of the standard rules somewhat inelegant.
On the Masters route both players run round the small block, so the end of the game turns into a joust between the two sides, and the even spacing of the rosettes gives the path a regular rhythm.