How to play SHO

The basics

1. Throw: when it is your turn a wooden cup appears beside your name on the board. Tap it to slam the cup, and use the total of both dice.
2. Opening: every player starts by entering two coins together on the shell matching the total of the first throw. If that shell holds another player's first coins, you kill them and enter three coins there. If the next player opens on the same shell, they kill those three and enter four, and so on: one more coin each time. An opening never earns another throw, even when it kills. A player whose first coins are killed opens again on their next turn.
3. Counting shells: coins rest in the gap after a shell. When you move, count that many shells forward: on the board they light up and gather together, and your coin goes right after the last one.
4. Each turn after that: enter one new coin from your hand on the shell matching the total, or move one of your stacks forward by the total.
5. One player per shell: coins of different players never share a shell.
6. Stack: landing on your own coins joins them into one stack, and you throw again. Stacks move together and never split.
7. Kill: landing on an opponent's stack that is the same size or smaller sends those coins back to their owner's hand, and you throw again. You cannot land on a bigger stack.
8. Turn ends when you place coins on an empty shell or have no legal move.
9. Finish: a stack that moves past shell 64 goes home. The only way to win is to bring all nine coins home.
10. Making a move: after your throw, your coins that can move glow. Tap one (or your coin pile in the corner to bring in a new coin) and its possible moves appear on the board: Move, Stack, Kill or Home, with the number used. Tap one to play it.

Special throws

• Pa ra (1 + 1): either enter two coins on shell 2, or keep the 2 and throw again. You then choose 2, the new total, or both together. If that move stacks or kills, the number you did not use carries over to the next throw.
• 3 + 6: with no coins on the shells, a 3 and a 6 brings every coin in your hand onto shell 9 at once.
• Nine-coin stack (dgu mo): all nine coins in one stack, the strongest stack in the game. Some groups forbid it.

Bhutanese local rules

• Going past the end: when a stack finishes with points to spare, you use the count left over: move any one of your stacks forward by it, or enter a new coin from your hand on that shell (carrying on from the start). Example: your stack is 4 shells from home and you throw 9: it goes home, and you choose which stack moves the other 5, or bring a coin in on shell 5. If only one move is possible it is played for you; if none is, the extra count is lost. A move that stacks or kills earns another throw as usual.
• Teaming up against the leader: the losing players can join together against the leader by supporting one of them, the champion. In SHO, once a player has 5 or more coins home and is ahead of everyone, the others become allies who cannot kill each other. If the champion kills the leader and then brings all coins home, one coin must go back to the start and finish again before the champion wins.

The calls

Players shout the number they want as the cup comes down.