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The name derives from the fact that a peg is sent back to the "out" field when another peg lands on it, similar to the later game Sorry! It is a cross and circle game with the circle collapsed onto the cross, similar to the Indian game Pachisi, the Colombian game Parqués, the American games Parcheesi, Aggravation, and Trouble, the French game Jeu des petits chevaux, the Chinese Aeroplane chess and the English game Ludo.

Overview

The most played variant of the game can be played by two, three or four players – one player per board side. The special one has a pattern for six players. Each player has four game pieces, which are in the "out" area when the game starts, and which must be brought into the player's "home" row.

The rows are arranged in a cross position. They are surrounded and connected with a circle of fields, over which the game pieces move in a clockwise direction. There are three fields on each side of the board. At the beginning of the game, the players' pieces are placed in the four fields marked "B" on the far left side, the "out" section. The coloured field just left of centre, marked "A", is each player's "start" field. The white field just to the right of the start field leads to the "home" row, marked "a", "b", "c", "d". Each game piece enters the circle at the "start" field ("A"), moves (clockwise) over the board and finally enters the "home" row. The first player with all of their pieces in their "home" row wins the game.

The players throw game dice in turn and can advance any of their pieces in the game by the thrown number of dots on the die.

Throwing a six means bringing a piece into the game (by placing one from the "out" ("B") area onto the "start" or "A" field) and throwing the die again. If a piece is on the "A" field and there are still pieces in the "out" area, it must be moved as soon as possible. If a piece cannot be brought into the game then any other piece in the game must be moved by the thrown number, if that is possible. A commonly played variation allows a player who has no pieces in the circle of fields to have three tries to throw a six.

Pieces can jump over other pieces and throw out pieces from other players (into that player's "out" area) if they land on them. A player cannot throw out his own pieces and cannot advance further than the last field in the "home" row. A player cannot be thrown out if he is on his "start" field. Two pegs cannot reside on the same circle. Once inside of the "home" area, pegs cannot jump over other pegs and an exact roll of the dice is required to move inside of the home area. Your peg can only move into the home of the same color. (i.e. You cannot go into somebody else's home and kick their pegs out.) A worst case scenario for entering home is depicted in the image here:

It would require the person to roll 4 consecutive 1's to get all of the pieces in home before another player could kick the one peg waiting outside of home.