A pair of dice (or sometimes a pair for each player) and a couple of dice-boxes complete the apparatus of the game.
The men are arranged at starting as shown in { 273} Fig. 1--viz., two of White's men are placed on the ace point in Black's inner table, five are placed on the six point in Black's outer table, three on the deuce point in White's outer table, and five on the six point in White's inner table. Black's men are placed in like manner on the points immediately facing these.
The game is commenced by each player throwing on the centre of the board a single die, the higher throw of the two giving the right to begin. In the event of a tie, the players throw again. All subsequent throws are with both dice.
The thrower of the higher number may either adopt the points shown by the two dice as his own throw, or throw again. After throwing, he calls the number of the throw, the higher number first, as "six deuce," "cinque trois," "quatre ace," or as the case may be, and then proceeds to make his move in accordance with it. The movement of the men of each player is from the ace point in his opponent's home table towards the like point in his own, though for many purposes it suffices if he can play them into his own table, independently of their reaching any particular point therein, the object of the game being first to get all the player's men into his own inner table, and then to play them out of it again, according to certain rules to be hereafter stated. The number uppermost on each die entitles the player to move one man forward a corresponding number of points. Thus if he threw "six trois," he is entitled to move one man six points onward, and then the same or another man { 274} three points onward. In the event of his throwing the same points with both dice (known as "doublets"), he is entitled to play the throw twice over. Suppose, for example, that he throws two aces; he may move one or more men forward to an aggregate extent of four points. If he throw double deuces, he may move to an aggregate extent of eight points; if double threes, twelve points, and so on.
The right to move is subject to a certain qualification--viz., that a man can only be played to a point which is either vacant or occupied by one or more men of the player, or by one man only of the adversary. A player getting two men on a given point is said to "make" such point, and as he thereby secures such men from capture, and at the same time impedes the onward march of the enemy, it is always an object to do this. A single man on a given point is known as a "blot," and not only does not prevent the enemy playing to that point, but in the event of its being "hit"--_i.e._, reached by an adverse throw, it is "taken up" (placed on the bar between the two tables), and, however far advanced it may have been, has to begin its journey anew from the inner table of the adversary. Nor can such man again start on its journey until its owner is fortunate enough to make a throw corresponding with a vacant point or blot in such table. Until he does this, the play of his other men is suspended. If the adverse player's home table is completely full--_i.e._, each point occupied by two or more men, his play is altogether suspended, the adversary continuing to throw and move until the course of play again throws open one or more points in his table. { 275}