Traditional Korean horse racing

Let’s check out 🐴 Yut! It’s one of the four games included in the Ludos: Asia collection, which is currently live on Kickstarter. Yut is from Korea 🇰🇷, with roots going back over 2000 years, and to this day it is played by families. It’s about horse racing 🏁, with a big dash of randomness, but some decisions to make with each roll. 😉

I see resemblance with Ludo (aka. ‘Mensch ärgere dich nicht’ in Germany), as you are racing in a circle across the board, trying to get your 4 pieces past the goal line, and you can capture enemy pieces if you land on their space. Ludo is of course only about a hundred years old, but probably much more known to many.

In Yut instead of dice you will be throwing casting sticks, which are half cylinders. 📏 After rolling 4 of them, you have to count how many are flat side up - that is the value of your roll. Interestingly 0 flat sides equals a value of 5. 🧐 Then you use the value either to move one of your horses on the board, or bring in and move a new horse from the starting stable. You are moving counterclockwise on the circle shaped board, racing for the finish line. ☝️If you roll a 4 or 5 you get to roll again - either moving a horse for the sum of the two rolls, or moving two different horses.

There are some additional rules to spice things up:
🐎 If you land on an opponent’s horse you get to capture it, so it is returned to its starting place - plus you get to roll and move again!
🐎 If you land on your own horse, you can stack them. From your next turn on they move together, and you could even stack up to 4 horses! But it’s also risky because they can all get captured at the same time.
🐎 There are shortcuts on the circle. If you ended your move in such a space you get to move across the circle, reaching the goalmuch quicker

It’s a bit random, a bit chaotic, but I can understand why it has been a staple for hundreds of years. 😄 There is easy of play, excitement and tactility, as you throw the casting sticks each turn, hoping it’s just what you need.