Royal Game of Ur

These are Irving Finkel’s rules, the ones a new board is set out with. Roll four binary dice, then move one of your seven pieces by the number of marked tips. Bring a piece onto the track, move one already in play, or bear off with an exact roll.

Landing on an opponent on the shared track sends that piece back to its start. You cannot land on your own piece. The central rosette protects its occupant, and every rosette grants another roll.

A zero or a roll with no legal move passes the turn automatically. The first player to bring all seven pieces home wins.

The other rulesets change the dice, the number of pieces, the route and what a rosette does. You pick one before the board is set out: when you make the table for a friend, or in the bar above the board on one screen and against the computer. The board names the rules it is playing.