How to play Barbudi

Barbudi is played with two dice and chips or points to bet with. Two players is enough, but more can sit around the table. The game has Middle Eastern roots and travelled with Greek and Turkish speaking immigrants to North America, where it was for a long time the big dice game of Montreal. It is traditionally played for money, so at home you use chips.

Two players are active at a time: the shooter, who rolls the dice, and the fader, who covers the bet.

The shooter puts up a stake, and the fader covers it with an equal amount. The shooter then rolls both dice, over and over, until one of the counting throws appears:

• 3-3, 5-5, 6-6 or 6-5: the shooter wins the pot.
• 1-1, 2-2, 4-4 or 1-2: the shooter loses the pot.

Every other throw means nothing, so the shooter simply rolls again. Note the mirror image: 6-5 wins and 1-2 loses, while doubles 3, 5 and 6 win and doubles 1, 2 and 4 lose.

After each settlement the game moves on, and this is where house rules vary the most. A common arrangement is that the shooter keeps the dice for as long as the throws keep winning, and that the dice pass around the table when the shooter loses. The fader role usually travels with them, so that the player to the shooter's right covers the bet.

With more than two players, the others can bet among themselves on whether the shooter wins or loses, settled the same way as the main bet.

Barbudi has no built-in ending, so agree in advance how many rounds you play, or for how long. Whoever has the most chips when you stop is the winner.

The game goes by several names: barbut in Turkey and the Balkans, barbotte in Canada and barbooth in the United States. The casino version in Montreal was played with a fixed fee to the house, since the game itself gives the bank no advantage at all.

If you want a betting game with more choices, Craps is the natural neighbour. Cee-lo offers the same head-to-head feel, just with three dice.

Yes, completely fair. Of the 36 possible combinations of two dice, five win for the shooter (3-3, 5-5, 6-6 and the two ways of rolling 6-5), and five lose (1-1, 2-2, 4-4 and the two ways of rolling 1-2). The rest do not count. Shooter and fader therefore have exactly the same chance.

Yes. Only two players are active in each settlement, but the roles wander around the table, and the others can bet among themselves on the outcome. With four to six players it is rarely long between each time you have something riding on the roll.