Pachisi

How to play pachisi

From the book

• Two or three players, or four when they play two against two in teams. Red and black play against yellow and green. Each player has four pieces and chooses an arm of the cross.
• The pieces go from the centre (char-koni) down the middle row of their own arm, then with the sun round the board along the outer rows, and finally up the middle row again and into the centre. The first to get all four pieces into the centre has won.
• The dice are six cowrie shells. Points by how many land with the opening up:

• Everyone first throws for who begins. Each throw moves one piece the whole score; if you get more throws, each throw may move a different piece.
• The first piece may leave the centre on any throw. The next ones only on a throw that gives another throw.
• A piece on its way home is laid on its side so it is told apart from those that have not started, and it enters the centre only on an exact throw.
• If you land on an opponent's piece, it is sent back to the centre and must start again. You get an extra throw. The squares with a cross are castle squares: there no one can be taken, and any number may stand.
• Two pieces on the same square are a blockade. The opponent cannot move past it with a single piece, and takes it only by landing with as many or more. A blockade on a castle square cannot be taken.
• Pieces standing on the same square may be moved together on one throw.
• In teams the partners win or lose together. If your partner is doing badly, you help by holding two or more pieces back as blockades, or by taking the opponents' pieces. If one goes out of the game long before the other, the other team has two throws in each round against the remaining player's one.

My choices where the book leaves it open or is cut off

• The castle squares are where they usually are: at the outer end of each middle row, and the fourth square from the end in each outer row.
• "First piece" is read as none of your pieces being out on the board.
• Pieces moved together each go the whole throw. Such a group may pass a blockade that is no bigger than the group.
• In team play you never take your partner's pieces, and your partner's pieces count in a blockade.
• No throw gives 1, so a piece one square from the centre enters on the smallest throw, 2. Without that rule the piece would stand there for ever.
• The shells land with the opening up half of the time. No one undoes a throw.

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