How to play the Royal Game of Ur: a beginner's guide

The Royal Game of Ur is quick to learn: throw the dice, move a piece, race all seven home. Winning more often comes down to a few habits: knowing the odds of the dice, using the rosettes, capturing at the right moment and keeping your pieces where they can’t be hit. This tutorial walks you through your first game and then those habits one at a time. If you want the full rules first, read the Royal Game of Ur rules.

What you will learn

• How a turn works, from the first throw to bearing off your last piece.
• Why a 2 is the number to plan around.
• How to use the five rosettes, and why the middle one matters most.
• When a capture is worth it and when to leave it.
• How to keep pieces safe in the shared middle row.
• How to finish the race without wasting throws.

Your first game, step by step

1. Open the Royal Game of Ur and choose vs Computer on Easy, or With a friend. Your seven pieces wait in the stack in the gap of your row.
2. Throw the dice. Tap Roll. The number of marked tips facing up is your roll. A 0 means no move, so the turn passes.
3. Enter a piece. With nothing on the board your only move is to enter a piece on the square that matches the roll: square 1 for a 1, square 4 (the corner rosette) for a 4. The game plays a move like this by itself when it is the only one.
4. Choose a piece. Once you have pieces on the board, tap the one you want to move. Its landing square lights up. Tap that square, or the piece again, to move.
5. Land on rosettes. When a piece stops on a rosette, you throw again. Use the extra throw for any piece.
6. Enter the middle row. From square 5 your pieces share the middle row with your opponent. Here you can capture and be captured.
7. Head home. After square 12, your piece turns back onto your own row at squares 13 and 14, where it is safe again, and leaves the board with an exact roll.
8. Finish. The first player with all seven pieces off the board wins.

Know the odds

Each of the four dice is a coin toss, so the totals follow a simple pattern: out of 16 throws you can expect one 0, four 1s, six 2s, four 3s and one 4. Turn that into a rule of thumb:

• A 2 is the most likely throw, about 3 times in 8.
• A 1 or a 3 each come up about 1 time in 4.
• A 0 or a 4 each come up about 1 time in 16.

This is what makes distances matter. A piece 2 squares behind an opponent’s piece threatens it on almost 40% of throws. A piece 4 squares behind it threatens it only about 6% of the time. When you place a piece, look at the distance to the nearest opposing pieces behind it.

Rosette control

The five rosettes are the strongest squares on the board, because every landing gives a free extra throw. An extra throw is worth about two squares of progress on average, plus a choice of which piece to move.

The middle rosette

The middle rosette, square 8, is the key square of the game. A piece on it:

• can’t be captured,
• blocks your opponent from landing there,
• sits in the middle of the shared row, where it threatens opposing pieces ahead of it.

Getting a piece to the middle rosette early, and leaving it there while your other pieces move, is a strong plan. Your opponent then has to jump over it, and every one of their throws that would land exactly on square 8 is wasted. Move it on only when it has a good reason to: a capture, another rosette, or when it is the only legal move.

Your own rosettes

Square 4 (the corner of your row) and square 14 (near the end) are rosettes only you can use. They can’t be fought over, so they are reliable sources of extra throws:

• Square 4: a piece waiting there is safe and lands on the middle rosette with a 4, or steps into the shared row with a 1, 2 or 3. Entering with a 4 straight onto it is a bonus throw.
• Square 14: reaching it gives an extra throw, and from there a 1 bears the piece off.

A common pattern is to keep one piece on square 4 as a reserve, ready to jump to the middle rosette when the right number comes.

When to capture

A capture sends a piece back to the start and costs your opponent all of its progress. It is usually right to capture, and the further the captured piece had travelled, the bigger the gain.

Before you take one, check three things:

1. How far had their piece come? Hitting a piece on square 11 costs them eleven squares of work; hitting one on square 5 costs only five.
2. Where will your piece stand afterwards? Count the opposing pieces 1 to 4 squares behind your landing square. Two of them, especially one exactly 2 behind, make a return capture likely.
3. What else could this throw do? Reaching the middle rosette or square 14, or bearing off your last pieces, can be worth more than a small capture.

A good capture hits a piece that was far along and leaves your piece with nothing close behind it, or lands it near the end of the shared row where it can step home to square 13 next turn.

Keeping your pieces safe

Your own row is always safe. Danger only exists on squares 5 to 12 (except the middle rosette), and only from opposing pieces behind you.

• Cross the danger zone in few steps. A piece that moves from square 4 to the middle rosette with a 4, then on to 12 or 13 with later throws, spends little time exposed.
• Don’t park in front of a waiting enemy. Squares 5 and 6 are close to your opponent’s own rosette on square 4 and their entry squares, so pieces there are hit often.
• Move the piece in danger. When a piece is 1 to 3 squares in front of an opponent’s piece, moving it out of reach, or onto the middle rosette, is often better than racing a safe piece.
• Stay behind, not in front. A piece just behind an opposing piece is the one doing the threatening. Waiting there can be strong when your other pieces have useful moves.

Use every throw

The worst feeling in this game is a good throw with nothing useful to do with it. Keep options open:

• Have two or three pieces in play. One piece alone often has only one move, and it might be a bad one.
• Spread your pieces out. Pieces on squares next to each other block one another, since you can’t land on your own piece.
• Keep a piece in reserve on your row. A waiting piece, or one on squares 1 to 4, can take a throw that would be dangerous for the others.

The endgame

Once most pieces are home, the game becomes a pure race. The exact-roll rule matters now:

• A piece on square 14 needs a 1, on 13 a 2, on 12 a 3 and on 11 a 4. Since a 2 is the most likely throw, square 13 is a comfortable place to wait.
• With two pieces near the end, put them on different distances so that more throws bear one off.
• Don’t forget square 14 is a rosette: landing there gives an extra throw, which can be just what you need to bear off another piece.

Common beginner mistakes

• Leaving the middle rosette too early. It is safe, it blocks, and it gives an extra throw only when you land there. Leaving without a reason gives all of that away.
• Racing a single piece. Moving the same piece every turn leaves you with no choices when the dice turn against you.
• Ignoring the pieces behind you. Before every move in the shared row, count backwards 1 to 4 squares for opposing pieces.
• Capturing into danger. A capture that leaves your piece 2 squares in front of two enemies is often paid back at once.
• Entering too late. Pieces left in the waiting stack until the end make for a slow finish. Bring new pieces in when the throw has no better use.

Practice plan

1. Play two games against Easy and focus only on the rosettes: count how many extra throws you get.
2. Play against Medium and, before every move in the middle row, count the opposing pieces 1 to 4 squares behind your landing square.
3. Play against Hard and try to hold the middle rosette for as long as you can.
4. Play a friend on one device. Explaining why you chose a move is a great way to learn.

When you want something new, Backgammon uses the same ideas of racing, hitting lone pieces and safe points, and Ludo is a race home with captures for up to four players. Ready to play? Open the Royal Game of Ur and start a game.