Ur

Ur is a race game similar to backgammon, where you move your pieces around the board and attempt to get them all home before your opponent.

Game Play

Each player is randomly assigned a colour.
White is player one and is first to roll the dice.
Players take turns to roll the dice and move their pieces around the board.

Demo Gameplay

Path

The pieces move around the board as shown in the below diagram.
Captures can only occur in the middle row.

Turns

Turns consist of rolling dice and moving a piece.

Dice Roll

The dice used are binary, meaning they can either be worth 0 or 1
This means the highest roll is 4 and the lowest is 0.
After the player has rolled their dice, they then choose a piece to move that many squares around the board.

Moving Pieces

If a player has no pieces on the board, they must choose a piece to enter play.

Two pieces cannot occupy the same spot, if you land on an opponent's piece, their piece is moved back to the starting area.
You cannot capture a piece that is on a rosette square, making the centre rosette an important square.

If your piece lands on a rosette square (below image), you throw the dice again.


If the dice roll does not yield any possible moves, the turn is skipped.

Bearing Off

In order to get your piece "home" and score a point, the piece must make it all the way around the board, as shown in the above diagram.
A piece can only leave the board if the exact number is rolled. For example, if a piece is on the final rosette square, only by rolling a 1, can this piece leave the board.

Demo Bear Off

Winning and Scoring

The game is won by getting all of your pieces home before the opponent.