Snakes and Ladders guide
Snakes and Ladders rules, and which piece to move
Snakes and Ladders looks like pure luck, and with one piece it is. Add a second and a third and every roll becomes a small choice: which piece takes it? Here are the rules of our board, then how to choose.
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The board and the pieces
The board has 100 squares and your pieces start off it. You pick 1, 2 or 4 pieces each before the game, and 4 is the usual. A piece's first roll puts it on that square: a 3 puts it on square 3.
There are 9 ladders and 7 snakes. They are the same every game, so you can learn them. A piece never gets knocked off by another one, and any number can share a square.
- Ladders (foot to top): 4 to 25, 9 to 31, 13 to 46, 28 to 84, 42 to 63, 51 to 67, 62 to 81, 71 to 91 and 80 to 96.
- Snakes (head to tail): 47 to 26, 56 to 38, 64 to 45, 87 to 54, 93 to 73, 95 to 75 and 98 to 79.
How a turn goes
Tap the die. It gives a number from 1 to 6, and you move one piece that many squares. If you have several pieces that can move, the glowing ones are your choices. If none can move, the turn passes by itself.
A piece that ends its move on the foot of a ladder climbs to the top of it. One that ends on a snake's head slides to the tail. Only the square you end on counts: passing over a head or a foot does nothing.
A 6 always gives you another roll, even when no piece can move with it. There's no limit on 6s in a row.
Finishing needs the exact number
A piece has to land on 100 exactly. If a roll would take it past 100, that piece can't move. A piece on 97 needs a 3, and on 99 it needs a 1.
You win when all of your pieces are on 100, so with 4 pieces you have to finish all four. The last stretch is the dangerous part of the board: snakes sit on 93, 95 and 98, and from 94 a roll of 1 or 4 drops you down one of them.
A game with 4 pieces each takes about 7 minutes against the computer.
Which piece to move
With one piece there's nothing to decide. With 2 or 4, the choice is the whole game, and the computer shows how much it matters. Hard picks the best piece every turn, Medium 7 turns in 10, Easy 1 in 5, and a random piece the rest of the time. Over 2,000 games Hard beats Easy about 74% of the time with 2 pieces and 94% with 4.
The computer scores each move by how far all of its pieces have got, plus what the next roll could do for them. You can do the same in your head.
- Take a ladder when you can. The 28 to 84 ladder is worth 56 squares, more than half the board in one move.
- Don't land on a snake's head if another piece can move instead. A slide costs 18 to 33 squares, and 87 to 54 is the worst of them.
- Look one roll ahead. A piece that sits 1 to 6 squares before a ladder's foot has a chance of climbing next turn. If your pieces wait at different distances from different ladders, more numbers do something good.
- Use a spare piece to soak up a bad roll. When one number would put your lead piece on a head, move a back piece with it.
- Near the end, keep a piece back as a spare. A piece on 99 only moves on a 1. If it's your last piece, most turns pass; with another piece still running, you always have something useful to do.
Small things worth knowing
A 4 for a piece that's still off the board is the best opening roll there is. It lands on square 4, the foot of the first ladder, and climbs to 25.
With 1 piece there's no computer level to pick, since it has no choices to make. With 2 or 4, try Easy first: it misses the best piece most turns, so you'll win some games and see how the choices work.
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