Senet is an ancient Egyptian board game, one of the oldest known board games in the world, and is thought to be an ancestor to Backgammon. The oldest known reference to it is found in a burial from around the year 3500 BC which means when the Great Pyramid of Giza was built the game was already at least a 1000 years old.

As with so many other old games, the rules of the game were not recorded and preserved, no doubt, people back then didn’t think it was needed. Modern efforts to reconstruct the rules from the various pictures and discovered game boards have yielded two major and differing modes of play: one, using the rules proposed by Timothy Kendall, and the second, using the rules proposed by RC Bell.

Major Difference in the Two Rule Sets

Kendall’s version – all the player pieces are placed at the top of the board and the player races to be the first to remove all their pieces from the bottom right corner of the game board. This version is called Senet here at Goldtoken.

Bell’s version – all the player pieces start off the game board and the player races to be the first to move all their pieces from the bottom right corner to the upper left corner. This version is called Senet (Bell’s variant) here at Goldtoken.

It’s impossible, at this point, to know which version is the “more correct” version of the game, but, it is possible that both are due to how long the game was played. Just look at all the variants of Chess or Checkers that are hosted at Goldtoken as an example of this.

Explaining and Grouping the Variants

There are a number of variants offered at Goldtoken and this an overview of them. For a full covering of each type refer to the rules pages.

Kendall’s Rules Variants

Senet – Each player has seven (7) pieces.

Short Senet – Each player has three (3) pieces.

1-4-5 Senet – Each player has seven (7) pieces and continue their turn if they throw a 1, 4, or 5 until they throw a 2 or 3 or can’t move.

Short 1-4-5 Senet – Each player has three (3) pieces and continue their turn if they throw a 1, 4, or 5 until they throw a 2 or 3 or can’t move.

Pitstop Senet – Each player has seven (7) pieces and must land on a number of squares before the pieces are allowed to move off the board. (Which means, for example, if you have a piece two squares away from one of these squares then a throw of three, four, five results in you landing on this square.)

Short Pitstop Senet – Each player has three (3) pieces and must land on a number of squares before the pieces are allowed to move off the board. (Which means, for example, if you have a piece two squares away from one of these squares then a throw of three, four, five results in you landing on this square.)

Swapping Senet - Each player has seven (7) pieces and if you move your piece so that it lands on a piece of your opponent then you switch places (the opponent’s piece moves to where your piece started it’s turn) instead of your opponent’s piece moving back to the beginning, in the upper left corner.

Short Swapping Senet - Each player has three (3) pieces and if you move your piece so that it lands on a piece of your opponent then you switch places (the opponent’s piece moves to where your piece started it’s turn) instead of your opponent’s piece moving back to the beginning, in the upper left corner.

Bell’s Rules Variants

Senet (Bell’s Variant) – Each player has ten (10) pieces.

Short Senet (Bell's variant) – Each player has three (3) pieces.

Hit and Run Senet – Each player has ten (10) pieces and if you move your piece so that it lands on a piece of your opponent then you send the opponent’s piece back off the board and you can continue your turn by throwing again.

Short Hit and Run Senet – Each player has three (3) pieces and if you move your piece so that it lands on a piece of your opponent then you send the opponent’s piece back off the board and you can continue your turn by throwing again.

Special Squares

A look at the Senet board reveals several squares with symbols on them. You’d be correct if guessing that these symbols mean something special.

Kendall’s Rules Variants
House of Rebirth – space 15 (the one in the middle of the second row) – pieces who land on the House of Water square (space 27, the blue wavey one) return to this square
House of Happiness – space 26 (the Chesire cat grin) – pieces have to stop here even if they throw a bigger move
House of Water – space 27 (the blue wavey one) – pieces that land here return to the House of Rebirth square (space 15).
House of the Three Truths – space 28 (the three ducks?) – pieces can move off the board only with a throw of three
House of Re-Atoum – space 29 (the guy with a sun on his head) – pieces can move off the board only with a throw of two
Space 30 (the eyeball) – pieces can move off the board only with a throw of one

Bell’s Rules Variants

House of Rebirth – space 15 (the one in the middle of the second row) – pieces who land here are safe from capture until the first piece moves to the top left most square (space 1).

The other special squares mean nothing beyond that they are where the pieces enter the board.

My Suggestion for Which Variant to Play First

For those that want to give Senet a try I would suggest starting with Short Senet (Bell's variant).

The reasons for this include: the strategy for the short games is a bit easier then the full game, so, they are quicker to master. The full games can be long (over a hundred turns) which means it’s a long time before one can see all stages of the game and, until one learns the game, one might spend most of this long game unsure what they are supposed to do and I’ve found that’s not a fun experience. Also, playing Bell’s Senet variants means only worrying about the meaning of one of the special squares. And, finally, if one is familiar with Tourne-case then Bell’s Senet variants feels like a slightly more complicated version of Tourne-case.

That said, my favorite variant to play is Hit and Run Senet.

An Important Reminder About Moving

The player Buddha already posted a nugget about this so I don’t want to steal his thunder; however, it is a very important part to Senet so I can’t completely pass it over.

Moving in all versions of Senet does not involve throwing a dice, instead, it’s done by throwing four sticks, each painted red on one side, and counting how many sticks end with their red side up. (A move of 5 happens when none of the four sticks land red side up.) As a result, the probability of getting a 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are different. Throwing a 4 or 5 are the least likely result and throwing a 2 is the most likely result (it’s 6 times more likely than throwing a 4 or 5.)

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I'll leave strategy for a later nugget - once I'm confident that I've mastered the various variants well enough to be giving advice.