Backgammon guide
Your first game of Backgammon
Your first game, step by step.
Set up
Backgammon is played on a board of 24 narrow triangles called points. Each side has 15 checkers. You start with two checkers on your 24-point, five on your 13-point, three on your 8-point and five on your 6-point, and the other side’s are the mirror image. Your checkers travel around the board toward your home board, the last six points, from where they are taken off. Each player rolls one die to start, and the higher number plays both dice of that first roll.
Your first turn
Roll two dice. Each die is a separate move: with a 3 and a 5, you can move one checker 3 points and another 5, or one checker 8 points in all if the point it stops on along the way is open. Doubles are played four times. You can’t land on a point where the other side has two or more checkers. If it has just one, a blot, you hit it. The hit checker goes to the bar, and its owner must bring it back in before making any other move. You have to play both dice if you can, and if you can play only one, play the larger one when you can.
How a game ends
When all of your checkers are in your home board, you may bear them off, one for each die. A die takes off a checker on the point of that number. With no checker there, move one down from a higher point instead, or, if none is higher, take one off from your highest point. The first player to bear off all 15 wins. A win scores 1 point. It scores 2 for a gammon, if the loser hasn’t borne off any checkers, and 3 for a backgammon, if the loser also has a checker on the bar or in the winner’s home board. In a match, the doubling cube multiplies these points.
A short example
You roll a 3 and a 1. A popular opening with that roll is to move one checker from the 8-point to the 5-point, and one from the 6-point to the 5-point. You now have two checkers together on your 5-point. Your opponent can’t land there, and neither checker can be hit.