Royal Game of Ur

Game of Twenty Squares · Mesopotamia, c. 2600 BC

Game 1Finkel rules · 7 pieces

You 0

Computer 0

Moves

Game

Opponent

Rules Computer strength Show the route Play forced moves for me

How to play

Each player races their pieces along a 14-square course and off the board. The first to bear off every piece wins.
Your pieces enter on your own row, run left along it, turn up into the middle lane, run all the way right, then come back into your row and off. Tick Show the route to see it.
Roll four pyramid dice: each shows a marked tip half the time, and the number of marked tips is your move — 0 (1 in 16), 1 (4), 2 (6), 3 (4) or 4 (1).
Move one piece that many squares, or bring a new one on. You must move if you can; a 0, or no legal move, passes the turn.
Only one piece may stand on a square, so you can't land on your own piece.
Land on an opponent in the middle lane to capture it — it goes back to the start. Your own row is safe.
Land on a rosette ✿ to roll again. The middle rosette is also a safe square: nobody can land on it while it's taken.
To bear off, you need the exact number — one more than the squares left.
With a mouse, point at a piece to see where it goes, then click. On a touch screen, tap a piece, then tap it again (or its destination).
How the computer plays: it weighs how far each piece has run, who holds the middle rosette, and exactly how likely every piece in the middle lane is to be hit next roll. Hard looks five moves ahead, averaging over every possible roll (and extra rolls from rosettes); Normal looks at your reply; Easy plays by feel and makes mistakes.
Online friend sends a link; the host picks the rules. Every roll is made by both devices together — each adds a secret random number, sealed with a cryptographic hash before the other's is seen — so neither player can pick or predict the dice.
Blitz (from RoyalUr.net): five pieces each, a capture earns an extra roll, and the middle rosette is not safe. Quick is Finkel's rules with three pieces.
These are Irving Finkel's rules, reconstructed from a Babylonian clay tablet of 177 BC and played on boards found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur.