Long Nardy

Long Nardy, also called Narde, is a race for two players. Both of you move the same way around the board. The first to bear off all fifteen checkers wins the game, and the first to an agreed number of points wins the match.

The board has twenty-four points in four quarters of six. Each player numbers those points from 24 down to 1, in the direction they move.

Both players travel counter-clockwise, toward their own lower numbers. White's head is the top-right point of the wide board. Black's head is the point diagonally opposite — White's point 12, which Black numbers 24. Points 1 and 24 are not next to each other: every checker has to travel the whole board.

You may stack as many of your own checkers as you like on one point. You may never land on a point that holds any of your opponent's checkers, and you may never move backward.

Before the first game, each player rolls one die. Roll again on a tie. The higher roll moves first. Those two dice are not played; the starter then rolls both dice for the first turn.

Later games of the same match skip the roll-off. The player who lost the game that just finished starts the next one.

Each player's first turn of every game — and only that turn — may use the head exception below. The opening roll-off does not use it up.

One checker may use both dice, but only by playing them one at a time, and only when the point in between is itself a legal landing. A double is played four times.

If no legal move remains, the rest of the turn passes and the log says so.

Only one checker may leave the head on a turn, including on a double. A checker that leaves and then continues with the dice still to play is that one checker.

On your first turn of a game, and only then, a roll of 6-6, 4-4, or 3-3 lets two checkers leave the head. No other roll does, and no later turn does.

While dice remain that may still leave the head, the board reads "1 may leave" or "2 may leave".

Six of your checkers on six consecutive points, along your track from 24 down to 1, are a prime. You may not build a prime unless at least one opposing checker is already ahead of it — further along that opponent's own road to home than every point of the block. Checkers that have already been borne off do not count as ahead.

The block is judged after every single die, including a stop between two dice. A prime you were allowed to build stays in place even if the checker that was ahead of it is later borne off. A block of five, or a longer wall with a gap, is always allowed. A block that straddles the seam between your opponent's point 24 and their point 1 can never be legal, because nothing can sit ahead of it.

If any order plays both dice, you must play both. On a double you must play as many of the four as you can. If you can play either die but not both, you must play the larger. If only one die can be played, you play it even when it is the smaller. A move ruled out by the head, by a blocked point, or by a prime does not count as playable.

Legal landings are marked in gold. A press that the rules refuse is simply not offered.

You may bear off only when every checker you still have on the board is in your home (points 1–6).

An opposing checker sitting in your home does not stop you from bearing off, but you still cannot land on it.

The game ends the instant your fifteenth checker is borne off. Your opponent does not get a turn to catch up.

A game is one point. It is two points — a mars — when your opponent has not borne off a single checker.

Agree the match length before you start: first to 1, 3, 5, or 7. Reaching or passing that total wins the match. There is no draw, and there is no koks (the extra stake some tables add when the loser still has a checker on the head).

Online, each of you sees your own head at the top right. At a shared screen the board turns when it is handed over, so the player about to move has their head at the top right as well. On a phone the head folds to the right-hand end of the row just above home.