Şeş-Beş
(Ses-Bes, Nərd, Uzun Nərd, Nərd Taxta)DLP Game
Description
Şeş-Beş is a game belonging to the Nardshir family that is the most popular version of this game played today in Azerbaijan. It is commonly played in teahouses by men, though it is also played by women at home.
Rules
Played on a tables board, with fifteen pieces per player and two six-sided dice. All fifteen of a player's pieces begin on the space in the row opposite the player, on the rightmost spot. Play proceeds in a counter-clockwise direction.
Players throw the dice to see who plays first; the player who throws the highest plays first.
The pieces move each piece according to the values presented on the dice thrown on their turn. When doubles are thrown, the value of each die is played twice.
Pieces cannot land on a space that is occupied by one or more pieces belonging to the opponent.
A player can only move one piece from the starting position on each turn, except in two circumstances. A player can move two pieces from the start only once in the game with a double 6 or double 4 if it is on the first throw.
Rolling 6 and 5 (şeş-beş) moves a piece directly from the starting position to the bar; from there it moves into the third quarter of the board.
A player cannot occupy six spaces in a row unless one of your opponent’s pieces have moved beyond the six blocked spaces.
Once a player has moved all of their pieces into the final quarter of the board, they may start to bear off, moving the pieces into the position from which they began the game.
A players bear off with an exact throw to get to the starting position. If the player throws too high of a number for the pieces left, they bear off the farthest piece from the starting position.
The game is played in rounds, until a player reaches a score of three, winning one point for each game won. If a player bears off all of their pieces before the opponent bears off any, it is called mars and the player wins two points for that game.
