1Throw the dice and move one piece that many squares along your path.
2Landing on a rosette gives you another throw.
3Landing on an enemy piece in the shared middle row sends it back to the start.
4Bear off all seven pieces first to win.
Questions
Be the first to move all seven of your pieces from start to finish along the track on the board. First player to bear off all seven pieces wins. The race combines safe play on rosettes with aggressive capturing and blocking strategies.
The board has a distinctive H-shape with 20 squares arranged in tracks. Each player has 7 pieces starting off the board. Four tetrahedral dice (or two-sided dice equivalent) are used, giving results of 0-4.
Rosettes are safe squares - land on them when possible for protection and extra rolls. The central rosette is especially valuable since both players' pieces pass through it. Consider whether to move advanced pieces or bring new ones onto the board.
Discovered in the Royal Tombs of Ur (modern Iraq) by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, game boards and rules were deciphered with help from a Babylonian clay tablet describing the game.
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