Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 14:32:15 -0400
From: Daniel U. Thibault (selinur@io.com)
Subject: Stump the Net: Toblaro
> A customer came in yesterday and requested the bame Toblaro. Do you
> have any information? It is an ancient Scottish Drinking game
> using a 7 square board with 14 shot glasses, seven on each side. It
> may another name or spelt differently than my information.
From the components, I'm sure this is Tablero de Jesus. Originally a gambling game, turning this into a drinking game is very straightforward: one just replaces the coins with shot glasses.
Description follows:
This game is played with two dice, a seven by seven checkerboard and a fifteen coin stake supplied by each player. It was very popular in Spain and in the Spanish possessions in the Low Countries during the first half of the XVth century. It was banned by the Pope in 1458, the ban enduring until the early XXth century!
Each player rolls a die. Reroll ties. The low roller places five coins on either of rows 1 or 7, no more than one per column. The high roller places two coins likewise. The low roller plays first.
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | X | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | X | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | X | X | X | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | X | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | X | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
Having thrown the dice, the player loses them to his opponent on a throw of 7, 11 or 12. On any other throw, he must move two coins, one per die -- the same coin may not be moved twice. Each coin moves within the same column, never diagonally or across. The player moves each coin either away from or towards his side, by the number of rows indicated by the dice. A coin may not be moved back and forth on one die. If the player is unable to use both dice, he moves neither coin and loses the dice to his opponent.
After having moved the coins, if there are two or more lined up in a contiguous row (other than rows 1 or 7), the player may take them from the board. In that case, his opponent replenishes the vacated columns from his own stake and then takes the dice. If the opponent has an insufficient stake, the game is over.
When receiving the dice, they must be thrown at least once.
If a row of seven coins is created, the moving player may announce a "run". The opponent must then stake two coins on the run. The running player throws the dice. On a 7, 11 or 12, he loses the run and his opponent collects all nine coins. Otherwise, the running player collects the two coin stake and has the option of keeping on running. This keeps on until the runner stumbles, the opponent is unable to stake two coins, or the running player decides to take the seven coins.
The winner is the player with the most coins when the game is over.
The coins are replaced with shotglasses, or more exactly their contents. When coins are "captured", the winner simply gets to drink their contents, the loser refilling them from his bottle.