7/28/2019 Rules for the Game of Cluster

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Rules for the game of Cluster

1. The gameboard is comprised of 46 holes of two different depths, 20 of which are shallow (nochamfer) and 26 which are deep (with chamfer).

2. Each player has eight pieces, four short and four long.

3. The gameboard is placed lengthwise between the two players.

4. At the beginning of the game, each player places four long pieces of his color into the fourshallow holes immediately in front of him. Then, each player places his four short pieces (of thesame color), into the four deep holes ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE of the board, but immediately inthe second row in front of his opponents four tall pieces.

5. So, the starting position has four tall pieces (white) in the first row, and four short pieces (black)in the next row and on the opposite side of the board, just the reverse, four tall pieces (black) inthe first row, and four short pieces (white) in the next horizontal row.

6. The object of the game is for one player to get all eight pieces of his color into any contiguous

(connecting) patten AND with all the tops of the pieces level. This means that all four tall piecesmust be in deep holes and all four short pieces must be in shallow holes. There can be nointervening vacant holes or opponents pieces. The winning formation may be a chain or acluster of pieces, but all 8 pieces of the same color must be the same height and connected toeach other.

7. The movement of the pieces is as follows: a)a player may jump with any one of his eightpieces, regardless of location, any number of pieces, regardless of color, in a straight line (onedirection only) landing in the first vacant hole in the direction in which he is jumping, or b) a playermay move any one of his pieces one space into any adjoining vacant hole.

8. Clarification: a) a player may never jump over an empty hole (he must land in the first vacanthole in the line in which he is jumping). So, if there are four pieces of varying color and levels in a

line, he may jump all four pieces, but must land in the first vacant hole. If there are no vacantholes in the line in which he wants to jump, then he may not jump in that direction. Short piecescan jump tall pieces and vice versa.

9. Clarification: A piece may jump laterally (sideways from side to side) or diagonally along anyline which is at 60 degrees to the ends of the board, so there are only two kinds of directions inwhich a piece may jump; sideways (back and forth) AND diagonally (back and forth). A playermay jump with the same piece as many times as he wishes, but each jump counts as a turn.

10. Clarification: If a piece is stranded at the end of the board with several empty spaces betweenanother piece on the board, that piece may only move one space per turn in order to join up withthe other pieces or before it can jump multiple pieces in a single jump.

11. Clarification: At the beginning of the game all 16 of the pieces (8 of each color) are in thewrong depth holes. That is all of the tall pieces are in shallow holes and all of the short piecesare in deep holes. So, for a player to win with a clustered formation, he must move each one ofhis eight pieces at least one time in order to get each piece in a proper depth hole so that all eightpieces of his color are connected and of the same top level.

12. Note: the difference in length between a tall piece and a short piece is the same as thedifference in the depth between a shallow hole and a deep hole, so when a short piece is in ashallow hole and a tall piece is in an adjoining deep hole, the two pieces will have the samevisual height on the game board.