How to play Aces to the Centre

Aces to the Centre is played with five dice per player and suits three to eight players. No score sheet needed: the dice themselves say what happens. The game is also known simply as Aces.

On your turn you roll all your dice in one throw, then tidy up:

• Ones (the aces) go to the middle of the table and are out of the game.
• Twos are passed to the player on your left.
• Fives are passed to the player on your right.
• The rest you keep.

Then the turn moves on. The number of dice you roll keeps changing, as your neighbours supply you and you supply them.

Bit by bit every die wanders towards the middle, until only one die remains in play. The player who rolls that last die and gets an ace wins. Note that having no dice does not knock you out: a two or a five from a neighbour can put you back in play.

The most common variant flips the ending: whoever is stuck with the very last die loses instead of winning. With young children, start with three dice each for a quicker round.

A close relative is Mafia Dice, where the goal is to shed your dice first. If you like simple wandering games, also try LCR.

Around ten minutes. Every ace removes a die from the game for good, so the round moves steadily towards its end, however much the dice shuttle between neighbours along the way.