Summary

Two players will take turns rolling the dice, which will determine how far his men can move. Each player will try to move his men while blocking the opponent's in order to be the first to remove his men from the board. A game of backgammon can earn a player points depending on its results and bets, and multiple games are usually played in succession until the winning player reaches a predetermined score.

Rules

Understanding the board

There are 24 markings called the points. When multiple men (pieces) occupy the same point, they are placed in a line. Backgammon is, basically, a racing game in which the men will move through the board trying to reach and ultimately leave your home board. The direction and path the men take when moving is represented on the image. The games is divided in four quadrants called boards, each composed of six points. Each player has his own home board (we've added dots under these to keep score), and there are two outer boards.

Setting Up

Each player place one man on each mark of the board, as shown in the image. The doubling cube (the one with numbers) is placed in the middle of the gray bar, marking '64'. In this positions it is worth '1'. The cup is designed to hold the dice. Each player rolls one die and whoever rolls highest goes first. They roll again if they got the same result. MovingPieces In his turn a player must roll two dice (the pipped ones, not the doubling cube), to determine his movements. The exception is that on the first turn, the beginning player must use the results rolled to determine the players' order.

For each die, the player must move forward any man he chooses a number of points equal to the result. He may move the same man twice but each time is regarded as a separate move.

If the player rolls a double (the two dice have the same result), then he has four moves to play instead of two, each one consisting of the number shown in the dice.

Moving is mandatory. If a player may only move the result of one die but not both, he must do so. If he can only use either one or the other, but not both, he must use the highest result (but if any move would make the other possible, then he must move both). If he can't move neither, then he passes his turn.

A player may move a man to a point if it is empty or if it is occupied by men of his own. He can also do it if the point is occupied by a single opposing man, what is called a 'hitting a blot'. The blot (the opposing piece) is then removed from the point and placed on the gray bar that divides the board.

A man on the bar may re-enter the game though the opponent's side of the board on a regular roll, so a roll of 1 could take him to the first point and a 2 to the second point from the end of the board. But there's a catch: if a player has men on the bar, he must move them into the game first and may not move any other men until then.

When all of a player's men are in his home board, then he may start 'bearing them off', which means removing them from the game by moving them to exactly one space beyond the final point. To do it you must roll the exact number necessary to take a man to the last point +1. Alternatively a player may bear off the man farthest from the goal by rolling any number greater than his men need to bear off. For example, if only two men remain, one 2 points and the other 3 points away from the end, and the player rolls '5-1', he can use his 5 to bear off the man 3 points away. When a player bears off all his men, he collects his points, the game is reset and a new play begins.

Winningthegame Backgammon is usually played for a target score agreed by the players (we recommend 13). When a player wins a game, he scores the number of points marked by the doubling cube (but remember it is worth only 1 if in its initial position, on the gray bar). While the cube is “centered on 1” (which means, on the gray bar), any player about to roll may raise the current stakes. The opponent must then 'take' the new stakes or 'drop' the game. If he 'takes' it then he receives the double cube and places it at the right of the gray bar, marking 2. This means the game is now worth 2 points and only he can double the stakes again. If he does raise the stakes and the opponent takes it, the cube will be place at his opponent's right side of the board, now marking 4. The stakes may be doubled indefinitely, even if the cube only marks up to 64. If a player 'drops' a raise in stakes, the game is reset and his opponent receives the previous score marked by the cube (if he had raised it to 8, for example, and the opponent dropped, he would earn 4). In this version, the dots on the board are used to keep the score of each player, using the pyramid pins. With each point a player may move his pin one dot to the right.

Gammon and backgammon

If a player bears off all of his men before the opponent manages to bear any one of his, he has won a 'gammon', which means he earns twice the score marked by the doubling cube. If he wins a gammon while the opponent has men on the bar, it is a 'backgammon' and is worth three times the value on the cube.

Common Optional Rules

If players roll double on the first roll, the stakes are automatically doubled.

If a player doubles the stakes, the opponent may choose to 'beaver', which means doubling it again while still keeping the cube.

Gammons and Backgammons only count if the stakes have been doubled at least once – which is called the 'Jacoby rule'