Ruling — Winner's Circle

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Winner's Circlebg-1382-en-1e

To play Winner's Circle, follow these steps:

Setup

1. Place the game board in the middle of the table with the seven horses, the die, the pace chip, and money next to it.[1]

2. Shuffle the 28 horse cards and place them face down beside the board.[1]

3. Each player chooses a color, places the corresponding color card in front of themselves as identification, and takes three betting chips (1, 1, 2) in that color.[1]

4. Place the pace chip on space 18 on the track.[1]

5. Determine the seven running horses by drawing the top horse card from the stack and placing it above the first gate; place the horse that matches the color of the race gate on space 36.[1]

6. Continue drawing and placing horse cards until all gates are filled and seven horses are lined up on spaces 30 to 36 on the track.[1]

The Betting Phase

1. For the first race, a randomly determined player places the first bet.[2]

2. The first player places one betting chip faceup on one of the seven betting areas; this is a "show bet" (predicting the horse will be a top three finisher).[2]

3. Moving clockwise, each player places a betting chip.[2]

4. Repeat this for two more rounds until each player has placed three bets, ensuring each player bets on three different horses.[2]

5. For races two and three, the player with the most money places the first bet (if tied, choose a leader randomly).[2]

Running the Race

1. The player who placed the first betting chip rolls the die and moves any horse the number of spaces shown on its card next to that symbol.[3]

2. Flip the card over to indicate the horse has moved; this horse cannot move again until all other horses have moved.[3]

3. Moving clockwise, players roll the die, choose one faceup horse card, and move the appropriate horse.[3]

4. On a turn, a player must choose one faceup card and attempt to move a horse; passing is not allowed.[3]

5. If a horse's move would end on an occupied space, place the horse on the first free space behind its original stopping point.[3]

6. If a horse cannot move because all spaces in front are occupied, the player still flips the card face down to indicate the horse has had a turn.[3]

7. When all horses have moved once, turn all horse cards faceup; the next player to roll can then choose to move any horse.[3]

8. The first horse to reach or pass space 18 becomes the pace horse; place the pace chip in that horse's betting area.[3]

9. Place the first (Win) horse to cross the gray finish line on the spot next to the payout table and remove its card from play.[3]

10. Place the second (Place) and third (Show) horses similarly.[3]

11. Once the third horse crosses the finish line, the race ends; place the horse currently in last place on the spot to the right of the payout table.[3]

Payouts and Ending the Game

1. To determine winnings, total the number of bets on the three winning horses (each chip counts as one bet or two).[4]

2. Look at the appropriate row (Win, Place, or Show) on the payout table and find the column matching the number of bets on that horse to find the value of each bet.[4]

3. A player with a chip on that horse receives the listed amount, while a player with a chip receives double that amount.[4]

4. If the pace horse was one of the three winners, players with a chip on it receive an additional 100 for a chip or 200 for a chip.[4]

5. Players with a chip on the last-place horse must pay the bank 100 for a chip or 200 for a chip.[4]

6. In the third race, all payouts to players and the bank are doubled.[4]

7. Return all betting chips to players and discard the seven used horse cards.[4]

8. If it was the first or second race, repeat the preparation and betting for the next race.[4]

9. After the third race's payout, the player with the most money wins the game.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook · p.2 · 1 Special die · Playing the Game · The Race Preparation

[2] RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook · p.3 · The Race Preparation

[3] RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook · p.3 · Running the Race

[4] RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook · p.4 · Running the Race

The book has spoken.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 162 ms · ask 5975 ms · total 6139 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6139 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 3, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "The bell sounds, and the horses take off, spurred on by the roar of the crowd. To begin the race, the player who placed the first betting chip rolls the die and moves any horse the number of spaces shown on its card next to that symbol. (Remember that the card's gate and the horse are the same color", "headingPath": "Running the Race", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "\u0007 Place the game board in the middle of the table with the seven horses, the die, the pace chip, and money next to it. Shuffle the 28 horse cards and place them face down beside the board. \u0007 Each player chooses a color, places the corresponding color card in front of himself or herself as identifica", "headingPath": "1 Special die · Playing the Game · The Race Preparation", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "After examining the horses' strengths, players place bets on three of the horses. For the first race, randomly determine who places the first bet. This player places one betting chip faceup on one of the 7 betting areas, as shown in the picture. This chip represents a \"show bet\", which means the pla", "headingPath": "The Race Preparation", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Players who bet on the right horses reap the rewards, while others tear up their tickets in disgust. The payout table is located in the center of the board. To determine how much each winning bet is worth, first total the number of bets on the three winning horses: each chip counts as one bet and ea", "headingPath": "Running the Race", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "This variant is particularly recommended for games with 2-4 players. Use the rules given above except for the following: Each player takes all four betting chips (0, 1, 1 and 2) in his or her color. Betting now lasts four rounds, and players place chips face down when placing their bets. (Players ma", "headingPath": "Variations · Player A's payoff will be 700. (2 x 350) · Player B will receive 300 and Players A and C will each receive 150.", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Reiner Knizia The most memorable mounts of the past hundred years are brought together on one racetrack to determine who's the greatest racehorse of all time. When these equines of the ages line up at the post, every racing fan will cheer on their favorites, pushing the jockeys and their mounts to a", "headingPath": "Winner's Circle Rulebook · Objective · 1 Game board · 1 Special die", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Pace Horse: The second place horse received the pace chip. Players betting on this horse receive a bonus payout. Player B will receive an additional 200 and Players A and C will each receive an additional 100. \u0007 Player C has a chip and Player D has a chip on the last place horse. Players betting on ", "headingPath": "Player C's payoff will be 250.", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1 Special die · Playing the Game · The Race Preparation", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The Race Preparation", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Running the Race", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Running the Race", "sharpsignalDocId": 1115}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1115 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1115 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90567 of 3085 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 7, 2026 03:04 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Running the Race	p.3	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	1 Special die · Playing the Game · The Race Preparation	p.2	0.048387 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	The Race Preparation	p.3	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Running the Race	p.4	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Variations · Player A's payoff will be 700. (2 x 350) · Player B will receive 300 and Players A and C will each receive 150.	p.4	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Winner's Circle Rulebook · Objective · 1 Game board · 1 Special die	p.1	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Player C's payoff will be 250.	p.4	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 7 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	1 Special die · Playing the Game · The Race Preparation	p.2	#2	0.048387 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	The Race Preparation	p.3	#3	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Variations · Player A's payoff will be 700. (2 x 350) · Player B will receive 300 and Players A and C will each receive 150.	p.4	#5	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Player C's payoff will be 250.	p.4	#7	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Winner's Circle Rulebook · Objective · 1 Game board · 1 Special die	p.1	#6	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Running the Race	p.4	#4	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Running the Race	p.3	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	1 Special die · Playing the Game · The Race Preparation	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	The Race Preparation	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Running the Race	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Winner's Circle — Rulebook (corpus doc 1115)	Running the Race	p.4	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 162 ms · first delta 1256 ms · total 6139 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 162 ms · ask 5975 ms · gateway work 6139 ms · total 6139 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2653
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 965
tok/sec: 200.4 tok/sec — 965 output tokens in 4.815 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 45s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 5s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1045), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.