How to Play Senet

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Senet is a two-player race game played on a long board of thirty squares arranged in three rows of ten. Each player controls five pieces and tries to move them all the way around the board and off the end, while using blocking and capture rules to slow the opponent down. The game is simple enough to learn in minutes yet rewards careful positioning and calculated risk.

People love Senet for its clean tension: a single throw can swing the game dramatically, but good placement consistently outperforms lucky casting over a session. It is equally at home on a kitchen table, in a classroom, or as a travel game, and the small piece count keeps setup and pack-away fast.

A little history

Senet is one of the oldest known board games, with physical evidence of boards and playing pieces found in ancient Egyptian tombs dating back to around 3100 BCE. It appears in tomb paintings and was buried alongside the dead, suggesting it held religious or symbolic significance. The precise rules used by ancient Egyptians are not fully documented and scholars continue to debate the details; the rules widely played today are reconstructions based on archaeological finds, surviving depictions, and academic analysis, most notably the work of Timothy Kendall in the 1970s. Exactly how closely modern reconstructions match ancient practice remains uncertain.

Setting up

1. Place the board so the first row of ten squares runs left to right, the second row continues right to left beneath it, and the third row continues left to right at the bottom, forming a snake-like track.
2. Number the squares 1 to 30 in the order of travel along the snake track.
3. Identify the five special squares: House of Rebirth (square 15), House of Three Truths (square 26), House of Re-Atoum (square 28), the two remaining marked squares vary by reconstruction but squares 27 and 29 are commonly used as penalty squares.
4. Player one places their five cones on the odd-numbered squares 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9; player two places their five cones on the even-numbered squares 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10, so pieces alternate along the first row.
5. Decide who goes first by mutual agreement, or each player casts once and the higher score begins.

How to play

1. Players alternate turns. On your turn cast all four sticks (or roll the die) to determine how many squares you may move one of your pieces.
2. Casting sticks: each stick has one light face and one dark face. Count the light faces showing. A result of 1 scores 1, a result of 2 scores 2, a result of 3 scores 3, a result of 4 scores 4, and a result of 0 (all dark) scores 5. Results of 1 or 5 earn an extra turn immediately after moving.
3. If using a six-sided die as a substitute: 1 and 6 earn an extra turn; 6 is treated as a move of 5 for consistency with the stick scoring.
4. Move one of your pieces forward along the track by exactly the number of squares shown. You may not move fewer squares than scored.
5. You may not land on a square already occupied by one of your own pieces.
6. If you land on a square occupied by a single opponent piece, those two pieces swap positions. The opponent piece is sent to the square your moving piece just vacated.
7. A group of two or more opponent pieces on adjacent squares forms a block. You may not pass through or land on a block. If you cannot move any piece forward legally, you must move a piece backward instead. If no legal move exists at all, your turn is lost.
8. A single piece sitting on a square it shares with no immediate neighbour of the same player is vulnerable to swap. Two or more of your own pieces on adjacent squares are safe from swapping.
9. Special squares carry fixed rules: Square 15 (House of Rebirth) is safe to land on and serves as the return point for pieces sent back from squares 27 or 29. Square 26 (House of Three Truths): a piece here must score exactly 3 to exit. Square 27: a piece landing here is sent back to square 15 (or the nearest unoccupied square behind it if 15 is full). Square 28 (House of Re-Atoum): a piece here must score exactly 2 to exit. Square 29: a piece landing here is sent back to square 15 (or nearest available). Square 30: a piece here must score exactly 1 to exit.
10. To bear a piece off the board, you must land it on the exit square (beyond square 30) with an exact throw matching the required score for that piece's current square, or a throw of 1 from square 30.
11. Once a piece has exited the board it is removed from play and takes no further part in the game.

Winning and scoring

The first player to move all five of their pieces off the board wins. There is no points scoring in the standard game; it is a straight race. Because pieces on squares 26, 28, and 30 require exact throws to exit, the endgame can be drawn out, and a player who gets all five pieces to the final three squares first is not guaranteed victory.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns the swap rule: swapping is only triggered by landing on a single unprotected opponent piece. If you cannot reach any single opponent piece and cannot move forward at all, you move backward, choosing any piece and any backward move you like within the constraints. Players sometimes forget that the obligation to move forward applies first; you are only permitted to move backward when every possible forward move is blocked. It is worth agreeing this explicitly before play begins.

A second frequent dispute involves the special penalty squares: if square 15 is occupied when a piece must return to it, the returning piece goes to the nearest vacant square before square 15, not the nearest vacant square anywhere on the board. Similarly, if all squares before 15 are also occupied, the piece goes to the first available square it can reach. These edge cases rarely arise but are worth clarifying. Where two reconstructions give different rules for a specific square, agree on your version before the game starts and apply it consistently throughout.

How to win more often

• Prioritise building adjacent pairs early. Two of your pieces side by side are safe from swapping, and a block of three prevents your opponent moving through that section of the board entirely.
• Be cautious about leaving a single piece exposed on a square that your opponent can reach with a likely throw. Squares reachable with a 2 or 3 are the most dangerous since those results come up most often.
• Use the swap aggressively when an opponent piece is near a penalty square. Swapping a piece onto square 27 or 29 sends it all the way back to square 15, a near-decisive swing late in the game.
• Do not race all your pieces to the final squares simultaneously unless they are spread across 26, 28, and 30. Bunching everything at square 30 means you need five throws of exactly 1, which can take many turns. Stagger your pieces across the three exit-requirement squares to exit on a wider range of results.
• Save extra turns wisely. When you earn a bonus throw, use the first move to set up a safe position rather than rushing forward carelessly; the bonus throw then lets you extend the advantage.

Variations

Simplified casting

For younger players or quicker games, replace the four casting sticks with a single standard die. Each face scores its face value and no result earns a bonus turn. This removes the extra-turn mechanic entirely, shortens the game by roughly a third, and makes the movement distribution more even. All other rules remain the same.

No penalty squares

A beginner-friendly variant strips out squares 27 and 29 as penalty squares, leaving only the exact-throw exit requirements on squares 26, 28, and 30. The game becomes a purer race with less swingy reversals, which works well for introducing the core movement and blocking rules to new players before adding the full ruleset.

Seven pieces each

Some reconstructions use seven pieces per player rather than five, filling the first fourteen squares alternately at setup. This extends the game and increases congestion in the early stages, making the blocking and swap rules more decisive. The exit and special-square rules are otherwise unchanged. It suits players who want a longer, more strategic session.

Knucklebones casting

Using two knucklebones (or two four-sided dice) instead of sticks gives a different probability distribution. Scores of 1 through 4 are possible from each bone, and house rules determine which totals earn extra turns. Traditionally 1 and 4 on a single bone grant a bonus throw. The feel of the game shifts noticeably since very high or very low totals become rarer, rewarding more consistent forward planning.

Senet: frequently asked questions