backgammon

01Set the board

Use a 24-point board, 15 checkers per player and two dice. Number points from your perspective: your home board is 1–6 and you travel from 24 toward 1. Place 2 checkers on 24, 5 on 13, 3 on 8 and 5 on 6. Your opponent uses the mirrored arrangement and travels the opposite way. Each rolls one die; reroll ties. The higher roller begins using those two opening numbers.

02Use the dice

On later turns, roll both dice. Each number is a separate move; use different checkers or one checker twice, provided the intermediate landing is legal. A point holding two or more enemies is closed. Doubles give four moves of that number. Play both numbers if possible; if only one can be used, play it. If either number alone is legal but both cannot be played, use the higher. With doubles, use as many moves as legally possible.

Reference: Backgammon Galore — standard rules.

03Hit and enter

One opposing checker alone is a blot: landing there sends it to the bar. If you have any checker on the bar, re-enter before moving others. A 1 enters your 24-point, a 2 your 23-point, and so on, subject to blocked points. If neither die permits entry, your turn ends. After entering every bar checker, use remaining dice normally.

04Bear off and win

Once all 15 of your checkers are in your home board, remove them using the dice. An exact roll removes a checker from that point. A higher roll may remove one from your highest occupied point only when no checker is farther from the exit. You may make a legal internal move instead. If hit during bearing off, re-enter and return that checker home before bearing off again. First to remove all 15 wins.

Reference: USBGF — Beginner’s Guide.

05Score, cube and example

Without doubling, a normal win is 1 point; a gammon is 2 if the loser bore off none; a backgammon is 3 if the loser bore off none and still has a checker on the bar or in the winner’s home board. For later games, offer a cube double before rolling: the opponent accepts the new stake and owns the cube, or declines and loses the old stake. Only the cube owner can offer the next redouble. Multiply normal, gammon or backgammon points by the accepted cube value. In a match, the first game starting with either player one point from the target is the Crawford game: no doubling in that game. Doubling returns afterward. Agree a target score before match play.

Example: with all your remaining checkers on points 4 and 2, a 6 may bear off from 4. It cannot remove the checker from 2 while one remains on 4. Never treat 6–3 as one nine-point leap across a blocked intermediate landing.

Reference: USBGF — match and tournament rules.