Azul Openings: Your First Two Rounds

Azul has no fixed opening the way chess does. The bag deals out different tiles every game. But the first two rounds still follow patterns, and strong players tend to treat them the same way: fill lines exactly, place tiles where they will connect, and keep the floor clean.

Your choice of line is a choice of spot

On the colored side of the board, every color has exactly one home in each row of your wall. So when you put red tiles in your third pattern line, you have already decided where your next wall tile goes: the red space in row three.

That changes how to read a pick. Do not ask only “which line has room?” Ask “where will this tile land, and what will it touch?”

Two facts about the wall help:

• The same color in neighboring rows lands on a diagonal. It never touches itself. Tiles that stack up and down are always different colors.
• Middle spaces have more neighbors. A tile away from the edges can be touched on four sides. A corner tile can be touched on only two. Early tiles near the middle give later tiles more ways to score.

Fill the short lines exactly

In round one, each factory display holds 4 tiles, so a pick from a display is 1 to 4 tiles. The short lines love these picks. A single tile fills line one. A pair fills line two. Three of a kind fills line three.

Exact picks score without waste: no tile falls, and the line empties for next round. The best opening picks do this and land the tile somewhere useful.

Start the long lines early

Here is some table math. Divide the tiles on the displays by the number of players, and each player gets about 9 or 10 tiles a round on average. Filling all five pattern lines takes 15. Nobody fills everything in one round.

That is why lines four and five are usually built over two rounds. Unfinished lines keep their tiles, so tiles you put there in round one are not wasted. They are a head start.

A few habits help:

• Start a long line with a big pick. Three tiles in line five need only two more. One tile needs four more, and the line is locked to that color while it waits.
• Pick a color you can finish. If two other players are also building that color, you are competing for the same tiles.
• Let the long line set your plan. Its wall space is fixed. Build your other tiles around where it will land.

Score two tiles that touch in one round

During wall-tiling you move tiles top to bottom, and each one scores as it lands. So two lines finished in the same round can help each other.

Say your first line places a tile in the middle of row one. If your second line finishes with the color whose row two space sits right below it, that second tile scores 2 instead of 1. Small, but it is the start of a connected wall, and connected walls are where the points live.

When to take the starting player marker

The first player to take tiles from the center takes the marker. It costs at least 1 point on your floor line, more if your floor already has tiles. In return you pick first next round, from full displays.

In the opening, take it when:

• The center pick fills a line. Three yellow from the center into line three, plus the marker, is a good trade.
• Next round’s first pick matters to you. If your long line needs one more color, first choice of the fresh displays helps you find it.

Skip it when the center pick is small and sends tiles to the floor besides. Two points lost for a mediocre pick is a bad trade, even with first choice next round.

Keep the floor clean early

Floor penalties in round one are points gone for nothing. A tile in the floor line does not help your wall, and the first two spaces are the cheapest you will see all game. Save them for picks that are worth it.

Late in round one, the center may hold a big pile. If you are going to be forced to take it, plan ahead: keep a line open that can absorb that color.

A good opening, in numbers

There is no perfect target. As a rough check, after round one a strong opening often looks like this:

• Two or three tiles on your wall, at least two of them touching or close to it.
• A long line under way with three or more tiles.
• One floor tile or none, and if one, the marker.

By the end of round two, you want a small block of connected tiles in the middle of your wall. Every tile after that scores more.

For the deeper case for building columns and blocks, our Azul strategy guide lays out the math.