Rise & Slide

A tower and a die

Rise & Slide is the bottom face of the cube, and the most honest about its numbers. The board is a tower of thirty-six squares laid out six by six, snaking up from the ground. Four brass ladders lift you higher and four copper chutes drop you back. Before you throw, you choose how many throws you get this round: four, six or eight.

Your pawn starts below square 1 and moves the number on the die each throw. Land on the foot of a ladder and you climb it; land on the top of a chute and you slide down. Reaching square 36 ends the round early. Where the pawn finishes decides the return: the ground floor returns nothing, the middle floor part of the stake, the upper floor and the roof more.

What to expect

Fewer throws means the roof is harder to reach, so the four-throw table pays more for it; eight throws reach the roof often, so it pays less. Every choice returns about the same in the long run, a little under the stake. Beneath the game, the pay table lists the precise chance of ending on every floor for each choice, worked out square by square, not estimated.

Because the chances are fixed, a run of chutes says nothing about the next round. Our guide Chance forgets every round explains why.