How to Play

Jaipur

2-2 players 30-30 min 7.5 Board Game Geek Rating

In Jaipur, two merchants compete for the Maharaja's favor by trading goods more profitably than their rival. Players take turns either acquiring cards from the market or selling matching sets for tokens. Taking cards involves claiming camels, picking single goods, or swapping multiple items. Selling rewards decrease over time, but larger sets earn bonus points. First to win two rounds claims victory.

Published 2009

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Place starting camels

Put 3 camel cards face-up between the two players

Prepare the deck

Shuffle all remaining cards and deal 5 cards to each player, then place the rest face-down as the draw pile beside the 3 camels

Form the market

Draw 2 cards from the deck and place them face-up next to the 3 camels to create a 5-card market

Separate player camels

Each player takes any camel cards from their hand and places them face-up in front of themselves to form their camel herd

Arrange goods tokens

Sort goods tokens by type and stack each type in descending order of value, visible to all players

Prepare bonus tokens

Place bonus tokens face-down, shuffle them, then separate into three stacks by type (3, 4, and 5) so players cannot see the values

Place camel token

Set the camel token beside the three bonus token stacks

Determine first player

Randomly choose who goes first

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Choose one action

On your turn, perform exactly one action: either take cards OR sell cards

Take one good

Take a single non-camel good from the market into your hand, then replace it with the top card from the draw pile

Exchange for multiple goods

Take multiple non-camel goods from the market into your hand, then return an equal number of cards from your hand and/or camels from your herd to the market

Take all camels

Take all camel cards from the market and add them to your herd, then replace them with cards from the draw pile

Sell goods

Discard any number of cards of one good type from your hand to the discard pile

Collect bonus tokens

When selling 3 or more cards at once, take one bonus token matching the quantity sold (3, 4, or 5+)

Sell precious goods requirement

When selling diamonds, gold, or silver, you must sell at least 2 cards at a time, even if only 1 token remains

Partial token collection

If fewer goods tokens remain than cards sold, take whatever tokens are available but still receive the appropriate bonus token

Observe hand limit

You may never have more than 7 cards in your hand at the end of your turn; camels in your herd do not count toward this limit