Backgammon
A dice race where every lone checker is a target.
Two players, fifteen checkers each and two dice. Bring all your checkers home and bear them off before your opponent does, blocking their path and hitting their lone checkers. Luck rolls the dice, strategy decides the rest.
- Players
- 2
- Game length
- about 10 min
Rules
Objective
Move your fifteen checkers into your home board (the last six points of your route), then bear them off. The first player to bear off all their checkers wins.
Moving
The board has 24 points. The two players move in opposite directions. On your turn, roll two dice and move one or two checkers by the number of points shown on each die.
Doubles are played twice: four moves of that number. A checker cannot land on a point held by two or more enemy checkers. You must play both dice whenever possible.
Hitting and entering
A single checker on a point is vulnerable. If an enemy checker lands there, it is hit and placed on the bar.
A player with a checker on the bar must enter it into the opponent's home board before any other move, on an open point matching one of the dice. If that is not possible, the turn is lost.
Bearing off
You can only bear off once all fifteen checkers are in your home board. A die bears off a checker from the matching point. If that point is empty and no checker sits further back, you bear off from the highest occupied point.
The doubling cube and wins
Before rolling, a player may offer to double the stakes with the cube. The opponent accepts and becomes the only one who can redouble, or refuses and loses the game at the current stake.
A single win is worth the stake. It is worth double (a gammon) if the loser has borne off no checker, and triple (a backgammon) if they also have a checker on the bar or in the winner's home board.