Long Narde is a race: the players never hit each other, they outrun each other. The rules below come in the order you need them at the board — what to prepare, who moves first, how checkers travel, what is forbidden, and how the game ends.
What you need
Two players. A board, fifteen white and fifteen black checkers, and two dice. Each player’s checkers are a single colour — usually black and white.
The object of the game
Bring all of your checkers around the board into your home — the last six points on their path — and bear them off before your opponent does. There is no hitting and no trapping in Long Narde, and no doubling cube either: the game is a pure race.
The starting position and the head
At the start of the game all fifteen of a player’s checkers stand on a single point, their own twenty-fourth. That stack is called the head. Both players’ checkers travel in the same direction, counterclockwise, from the head towards their home.
Who moves first
The opening move is decided by each player rolling a single die: whoever rolls higher begins. On a tie the roll is repeated. The values rolled for the lead are the ones played as the first move.
After that the players alternate, rolling both dice each turn. The dice must land flat on an empty part of the board, on one side of the bar. If a die leaves the board, the dice come to rest in different halves, a die lands on a checker or does not lie flat, the roll is void and repeated.
How checkers move
The numbers rolled are two separate moves. A player may make them with different checkers or with one checker in succession: first by one number, then by the other. On a double — the same number on both dice — the roll counts twice over, and the player makes four moves.
Moving is compulsory, and the rule is stricter than it looks:
- if both numbers can be played, playing only one is not allowed;
- if two moves are possible and one of them uses both dice while the other uses one, the one using both must be played — the full-move rule;
- if only one of the numbers can be played, the higher one must be played;
- a move may not be declined, however unwelcome it is.
Skipping a turn is legal in exactly one case: when no move at all can be made.
The head rule
Only one checker may leave the head per turn. The single exception is the opening turn on a double of 3-3, 4-4 or 6-6: two checkers may then leave the head.
What is not allowed
A point holding even one opposing checker is closed: you may not move onto it. Nor may you hit that checker — hitting does not exist in Long Narde, so a lone checker holds a point as firmly as several do.
From that follows a second restriction that backgammon does not have: an unbroken row of six of your own checkers may not be built if the opponent has no checker left ahead of it along their path. A wall that locks the opponent in completely is forbidden.
Bearing off
Bearing off begins once all fifteen of a player’s checkers have reached home; before that, no checker may be taken off. From then on the numbers rolled may be used either way: to move a checker inside the home or to bear it off the board.
If the point matching the number rolled is empty, a checker is borne off from the nearest occupied lower point — but only once no checkers remain on the higher points.
The game is won by the player who first bears every checker off the board.