Are you ready to play this colourful version of a traditional board game? The keywords in this game are strategy and some good luck: roll the dice and move your chips to the home board as fast as possible.vContents: game board, 30 game pieces, 2 dice
Players: 2
Preparation: the game is played by two players, each player has 15 chips. Have a look at the drawing for the starting positions of the chips of both players. It is important that you set up the game in this way before starting to play.
To start the game, each player rolls 1 die. The player with the higher number may start to play and uses the numbers of both the dice for their first move. The players always roll two dice for every turn, except at the start of the game when determining who gets to start the game.
Play: every player tries to reach their home board (see the drawing) with their chips. The chips are moved just as many points forwards as the numbers you rolled with both dice. So if you roll a 2 and a 5, you can move one piece 2 points forwards and another piece 5 points forwards. Or you can move one and the same piece two and five points forwards. You must always land on ‘open’ points. These are unoccupied points, or points occupied by your own chips or points that are occupied by exactly one opposing chip. In this turn, the point 2 points up and the point 5 points up must both be ‘open’.
- Doubles: when the player rolls two of the same number (e.g., 2 times 5), the player must play each number twice. This means the player may make 4 x 5 moves, with 1, 2, 3 or 4 chips.
- Blot: a chip that occupies a point alone is at risk of being hit and is called a blot. It can be hit when the opponent’s piece lands on the same point. The chip is then temporarily removed from the board. The player must re-enter the game with this chip before they can move any other chips. You can do this by rolling the dice and moving your pieces to a vacant point, starting from the starting space (see the drawing). Attention: here too the rule applies that your destination point must always be open: if you roll a 4, and the fourth point from the starting position is already occupied by 2 of your opponent’s chips, you must skip a turn. Once all your chips are on the board again, you can move your chips again.
Bearing off: a player may only start to bear off when all 15 of their chips are on the home board (see the drawing). A player can bear off a chip when they end up on the home board after rolling the dice, even if the number is higher than needed. For example, if the player rolls a 6, but there is no chip 6 points from the end, then they can also bear off a chip that is 5 points from the end. If the player rolls a 3, but there is no chip 3 points from the end, but there is a chip 4, 5 or 6 points from the end, then they can move one of their chips 3 points closer to the end. When a chip is hit when bearing off, it must first re-enter the game and move to the home board again before bearing off can continue.
Winning the game: the first player to bear off their 15 chips wins the game!
