Chasing the girls

Chasing the girls

The starting layout
Other names	Icelandic: Að Elta Stelpur
Genres	Board game Tables game Race game Dice game
Players	2
Movement	parallel, anticlockwise
Setup time	10–30 seconds
Playing time	5–60 minutes
Chance	High (dice rolling)

Chasing the girls (Að Elta Stelpur in Icelandic) is an Icelandic tables game of elimination whereby hitting a blot results in eliminating it from the board.

Only rolls of 1's, 6's and doublets are played, while all other dice rolls are ignored. Only rolls of doublet 6's are played twice while all other doublets are played once.

No block can be formed as only blots are allowed. Hit blots are removed from the board and eliminated from game play, are not re-entered.

Once a player only has one man it is referred to as a corner-rattler (hornaskella). The corner-rattler only moves on points 1, 6, 7, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 24. A roll of 1 moves the corner-rattler one point forwards in the aforementioned points. A roll of 6 moves the corner-rattler two points forwards in the aforementioned points. Doublet 1's move two points forwards in the aforementioned points, doublet 6's move four points forwards in the aforementioned points. If the player rolls doublets, they re-roll the dice.

If the corner-rattler is between two of the opponent's men, the corner-rattler cannot be hit.

References

• Bell, R. C. (1979) [1st Pub. 1960, Oxford University Press, London]. Board and Table Games From Many Civilizations. Vol. I (Revised ed.). Dover Publications Inc. ISBN 978-0-671-06030-5.
• Murray, H. J. R. (1978). A History of Board-Games other than Chess (Reissued ed.). Hacker Art Books Inc. ISBN 978-0-87817-211-5.
• Chasing the girls rules at Backgammon Galore.