Backgammon, the game of kings, is one of the many exciting options available to play at online casinos. Don’t know how to play? No problem. Check out the Backgammon Basics below:
Backgammon is a game for two players. The game plays out on a board with 24 triangles in alternate colours called ‘points’. They have numbers from 1 to 24.
The board has four quadrants. Each quadrant contains six points. The lower right-hand quadrant is known as your’ home board’. The upper right-hand quadrant is your opponent’s home board. The two left-hand quadrants are called the ‘outer board’. A divider runs down the middle of the board. This is known as ‘the bar’. Checkers are placed here.
On the right-hand side of the Backgammon board are two trays, one for each player. Checkers are stored here when they are removed from the board. Yours go into the lower one; your opponent’s into the higher.
The object of the game of Backgammon
The goal of the game is to move all 15 of your checkers into your home board. The first player to remove all their checkers wins the game.
The dice determine how many points a checker can move. At the start of the game, both players roll one die each. The player who rolls the highest number moves first and must play the scores shown on the dice. If both players roll the same number, the dice roll again until they show different numbers.
Where checkers can land
If the point has any number of your own checkers or it is empty, you can move your checker there. You may have up to 15 checkers at any point. You cannot move a checker to a point which has two or more of your opponent’s checkers on it.
Hitting checkers
You may move to a point which has one of your opponent’s checkers on it. This move hits your opponent’s checker and moves it out of play onto the bar.
Here are a few example moves to help you understand moving around the board:
Your opponent rolls a 6, and you roll a 1. He moves a checker from his 13 points to his 7 points using the 6 shown on the first die, and then a second checker from his 8 points to his 7 points using the 1 shown on the second die. This move leaves two of your opponent’s checkers on a point. This is ‘making a point’.
Bearing off
You can start removing your checkers from the Backgammon board once they are all in your home board. This is ‘bearing off’. Your dice roll dictates which checkers you can bear off.– For example, a roll of 4 and 2 will allow you to bear off one checker from the 4 point and one from the 2 point.
If there is no checker on the point by the roll, you must make a legal move using a checker on a higher-numbered point. You must remove a checker from the highest available point if no checkers are on higher-numbered points. You don’t have to bear off if you can make another legal move.
If you remove a checker, it cannot re-enter the game. You can only bear checkers off when all your checkers are in your opponent’s home board. So, if your opponent hits one of your checkers while you’re bearing off, you must stop bearing off until that checker re-enters and reaches your opponent’s home board again.
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