Backgammon

How to play Backgammon

Backgammon belongs to a family of race games that goes back to Persian nard and Roman tabula. This is the game as it is played today, without the doubling cube.

The rules

• The board. Twenty-four points in four quarters of six. Each player has fifteen checkers. White travels from point 24 down to point 1, Black the other way, from 1 up to 24. The last six points on each player's way are that player's home.
• Who begins. Each player throws one die. The higher throw begins and plays the two numbers just thrown; if the dice are equal, both throw again. After that, the players take turns throwing two dice.
• Moving. Each die moves one checker forward that many points. One checker may use both dice, as long as the point it touches on the way is open. A double is played four times.
• Open and closed points. A point with two or more of your opponent's checkers on it is closed to you. A single checker standing alone is a blot: land on it, and it is hit and put on the bar.
• The bar. A checker on the bar must come back in before any of your other checkers may move. It enters in your opponent's home: a 1 brings it in on the first point of your way, a 6 on the sixth. If that point is closed, the die cannot be used for it.
• Using the dice. You must play both dice if you can. If only one of them can be played, it must be the higher one whenever that is possible. If neither can be played, the turn passes.
• Bearing off. Once all fifteen of your checkers are in your home, you may start taking them off. A die takes off a checker from the point that number of steps from the edge: a 1 from the point nearest the edge, a 6 from the farthest. A die higher than your farthest checker takes that farthest checker off.
• Winning. The first to bear off all fifteen checkers wins. If the loser has not borne off a single checker, it is a gammon; if, besides, one of the loser's checkers is still on the bar or in the winner's home, it is a backgammon.

In this version

• No doubling cube and no match play: one game at a time. A gammon or backgammon is named at the end, nothing more.
• The board stands on end to fit the phone: White's home is at the bottom right, Black's at the bottom left, with the bar and the trays in the middle.
• The machine weighs every full play of the throw and looks no further: pips, checkers off, points made, blots by the chance of being hit, checkers on the bar. On Easy it picks at random among the better half.

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