Street Pai Sho

Note: Game Under Construction

It seems that Street Pai Sho needs testing and tweaking to be the great game we’d like it to be. Please join The Garden Gate Discord to discuss the various testing game options built into the website and help make it into a great game!


Rules Downloads and Translations

Board Setup

Street Pai Sho is played on a standard Pai Sho board. Tiles are played on the intersections of the lines. Unlike other Pai Sho games, there is only one type of tile in Street Pai Sho. Each player starts the game with 8 tiles placed on the board like so:

Initial Board Setup
Initial Board Setup

Objective

The objective of Street Pai Sho is to be the first player to form Harmonies across all four midlines (or streets).

Playing A Turn

Players alternate taking turns. A turn consists of either moving a tile that is on the board or deploying a new tile onto the board.

Moving A Tile

Tiles can move up to 3 spaces. You can move over your own pieces as you move, but not your opponent’s pieces.

Capturing

Tiles can capture opponent’s tiles by landing on them. Each tile can only capture one opponent’s tile. When capturing a tile, simply place your tile on top of the tile being captured to signify that your tile has a captive tile.

When a tile with a captive is captured, release the captive into it’s owners tile reserve. Later in the game, the freed captive tile can be deployed onto the board later in the game like any other tile.

Deploying A Tile

If your Home Port space is empty and you have less than 16 non-captured pieces on the board, you may place a new tile in your Home Port.

Home Port Locations
Home Port Locations

Harmonies

A Harmony is created when two of a player’s tiles are on the same vertical or horizontal line on opposite sides of a midline, with no other tiles between them. A piece on a midline cannot form Harmony.

Look again at the initial board setup. Each player starts with two Harmonies across the vertical midline on his or her side of the board.

Winning

To win the game, you must have at least one Harmony crossing each of the four midlines at the beginning of your turn. That is, when you move into a winning position, your opponent has a chance to stop you. However, you do not have to tell your opponent that you are in a winning position. At the beginning of your turn, you may proclaim victory. If your victory claim is incorrect and you do not have the necessary winning Harmonies, you lose your turn.

Here is an example of a winning scenario for the Guest player (darker tiles):

Guest Player Winning Scenario
Guest Player Winning Scenario

Note: If at any point during the game a player has no pieces left on the board to move and cannot deploy (if the opponent blocks the player’s Home Port), that player loses. This situation is rare.