#The board
Backgammon is played by two players on a board of 24 narrow triangles called points. The points are grouped into four quarters of six. Each player has a home board, the quarter their checkers are travelling towards, and an outer board beside it. The strip down the middle that divides the board in two is the bar.
Each player numbers the points from their own side: your 1-point is the deepest point of your home board and your 24-point is the far end of the board, which is your opponent's 1-point. So the same triangle has two numbers, one for each player, and a move is always written in the numbering of the player making it.
#Setting up
Each player has fifteen checkers, one player light (usually called White) and the other dark (Black). Every game starts from the same position:
- two checkers on your 24-point, deep in your opponent's home board;
- five on your 13-point, the midpoint, in your opponent's outer board;
- three on your 8-point, in your own outer board;
- five on your 6-point, in your own home board.
The two sides mirror each other, and the checkers of each move in opposite directions: yours from your 24-point down towards your 1-point, in a horseshoe round the board.
#The object of the game
The first player to bring all fifteen checkers into their home board and then bear them off, removing them from the board, wins the game. Every checker starts somewhere on the way, and the two back checkers on the 24-point have the furthest to go.
The total number of pips (points) all your checkers still have to travel is your pip count. At the start it is 167 for each side, and it is the simplest measure of who is ahead in the race.
#Starting the game
Each player rolls one die. The player with the higher number moves first, and plays the two numbers just rolled, their own and the opponent's. If both dice show the same number, both roll again. After the first move, the players take turns rolling two dice each.
#Moving the checkers
The two numbers on the dice are two separate moves. A roll of 5 and 3 moves one checker five points and another three points, or one checker eight points in two steps, where each step has to land on an open point.
A point is open unless the opponent has two or more checkers on it. You may land on an empty point, on a point you already hold, or on a point where the opponent has a single checker.
A double is played four times: 4-4 is four moves of four, played with any combination of checkers.
You must use both numbers when there is a legal way to do so. When only one can be played, you play that one, and when either can be played but not both, you must play the larger. When neither can be played, you lose the turn.
#Hitting and the bar
A single checker alone on a point is a blot. Landing on an opponent's blot hits it: the hit checker is lifted off and placed on the bar, and it has to start its journey again from the far end of the board.
A player with a checker on the bar may make no other move until it has entered: it comes in on the opponent's home board, on the point matching one of the dice, counting from that player's 24-point. A 3 enters on the 22-point, a 6 on the 19-point. The point has to be open. If neither number enters, the whole turn is lost, which players call dancing, and when the opponent holds all six points of their home board (a closed board) there is no roll that enters at all.
#Bearing off
Once all fifteen of your checkers are in your home board, you may start bearing them off. A roll removes a checker from the point that matches the number: a 4 bears off a checker from your 4-point.
- You may use the number to move a checker inside your home board instead.
- If there is no checker on the matching point, you must move a checker from a higher point.
- If there are no checkers on higher points, you bear off from the highest point you do have.
If a checker is hit while you are bearing off, it must travel all the way round and back into your home board before you may bear off again.
#Winning a single game, a gammon or a backgammon
The first player to bear off all fifteen checkers wins, and how much depends on how far behind the loser was:
- a single game is worth one point: the loser has borne off at least one checker;
- a gammon is worth two: the loser has not borne off a single checker;
- a backgammon is worth three: the loser has borne off nothing and still has a checker on the bar or in the winner's home board.
#The doubling cube
The large die with the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 is the doubling cube. It starts in the middle, belonging to nobody, with the game worth one point.
Before rolling on your turn, you may double: offer to play the game for twice the stake. Your opponent either takes, and the game goes on at double the stake with the cube now theirs, or passes, and concedes the game at the stake it had before the offer. Only the player who owns the cube may double next, so after a take the cube can pass back and forth, doubling the stake each time. Gammons and backgammons multiply the value on the cube.
The cube is where most of the points in backgammon are won and lost. When to double, when to take and when to pass are in The doubling cube, and why a quarter of your chances is enough to take is in its section on the take point.
#Matches and money games
Backgammon is played in two forms. In a money game each game is scored on its own, for a stake per point. In a match the players play games until one of them reaches an agreed number of points, such as 5, 7 or 11.
Two rules follow from these forms:
- The Crawford rule, in matches: when a player first comes within one point of winning the match, the next game is played with no cube. The cube returns from the game after that. See the glossary.
- The Jacoby rule, in money games: gammons and backgammons count as single games unless the cube has been turned. It is widely played, and it is agreed before the session starts. See the glossary.
At match play the score changes what every cube decision is worth. The match equity table gives your chance of winning the match from any score.
#How moves are written
A move is written as the point a checker leaves and the point it lands on, in the mover's own numbering: 13/11 6/5 moves one checker from the 13-point to the 11-point and another from the 6-point to the 5-point. A star marks a hit (13/7*), a checker coming in from the bar starts at "bar" (bar/22), a checker borne off ends at "off" (6/off), and a number in brackets repeats a move, so 8/5(2) 6/5(2) is a 3-3 that moves two checkers from each point.
#What next
- Play a game against the engine in your browser at Play, with no account needed.
- See how to play each of the fifteen first rolls in Opening moves.
- Read the ideas that decide most games in Backgammon strategy basics.