Beating the Game: How to Win at Jenga®
The objective of Jenga is not to force your friends to make the
tower fall.
The object of Jenga is to win.
You do this by removing pieces from the Jenga tower and adding them to the top according to the pattern you’ve chosen, until there are no more valid moves to make.
When all possible blocks have been pulled, you’ve won!
All variations can be beaten, even those that seem impossibly hard.
Since this is a cooperative style of Jenga, please remember that your friends are not the enemy.
The enemy is gravity.
The Rules of Ngaejment: How to Play Jenga
1. Pieces are pulled and immediately placed on top according the pattern set by the tower variation. (This changes slightly in Vertical Jenga. See below.)
2. As long as the top row of the tower is full, you can pull from the row immediately below the top row. (As you approach victory, you may need to pull a piece from near the top before the top row is completed. This is acceptable only when there are no other options.)
3. You may use two hands if you want or feel you need to. Serious players, however, use only one hand. (Two hands are more often “needed” for Giant Jenga®, though serious players will still only use one hand.)
4. You are allowed to touch multiple pieces at once. This includes using stationary pieces as leverage to pull a looser piece out. For sticky pieces and difficult towers, this move is essential.
5. You are allowed to pull multiple pieces at once, as long as you’re only pulling the with one hand in a single, smooth motion. You must place all the pieces on top, following the pattern, with the same hand used to pull them.
6. You are allowed to move a piece and put it back or move a piece and leave it hanging.
7. Minor adjustments to the tower mid-game are acceptable, but not necessary. It’s okay to leave the tower (or part of the tower) in a weird state. In general, if the tower is unbalanced, you should try to pull and place your pieces strategically to correct the imbalance rather than adjusting the tower.
8. A tower that is about to fall can be validly rescued only with one hand, and that hand must be the hand you were using to pull or place a piece. You must then finish your turn. If you use two hands to rescue a tower that is about to fall, any victory achieved thereafter doesn’t “count,” but you can certainly keep playing.
Special Rules for Vertical Jenga and Endgame
In Vertical Jenga, you will get to a point where there aren’t enough free pieces to keep building the original structure, and you’ll have to switch to a smaller top structure.
Determine if this is necessary by counting the number of free pieces left in the tower (pieces that theoretically could be taken) and comparing that to the number of pieces required to make the next level of structure. (Two Vertical 5 sets = 14 pieces, one Vertical 5 set =7 pieces)
If you don’t have enough pieces to make a double you must switch to a single. If you don’t have enough for a single, place one last horizontal piece, perpendicular to the last completed row, and stack the rest of the pieces vertically, one on top of the other.
Who enforces the rules of Jenga?
This game is just for fun, so please don’t take any of it too seriously.
The ceramic gnome who appears in many of these pictures is the official referee of my Jenga games. He symbolizes an upbeat, neutral authority whose opinion we can ask for when needed. His name is Fred.
Feel free to find your own token referee or simply know that Fred is with you in spirit.
In the end though, how you play is up to you. If Ngaej stands for anything, it’s making this game your own. We did that by throwing the original rules out the window, and coming up with better ways to play Jenga, and we’ve had a lot more fun because we did! If you want to mix it up and invent your own rules, be our guest!
Tips and Precautions
If you’re looking for a tool to straighten out your freshly constructed tower, please do not use the Jenga box or the cardboard straightener that is sometimes provided with a Jenga set. Ngaej recommends using two large, hardback books. Coffee-table books work great.
The best tables for Jenga are sturdy, level, and hard to bump. Watch your knees!
Setting your drink down abruptly is a great way to bump the table and make a fragile tower fall, and pieces from tall towers might fall and break fragile glassware, so it is advisable to keep your beverage off of your Jenga table.
Extra caution is strongly advised for Giant Jenga. Vertical Giant Jenga gets tall fast, and a heavy wooden block falling from 6 feet could break your toe! Closed-toed shoes are recommended, and everyone playing should be aware of the tower at all times. Children should be kept at a distance. Play at your own risk.