Backgammon Rules

In backgammon, two players race 15 checkers each around a board of 24 points in opposite directions, and the first to bear all 15 off the board wins. Two dice decide how far you move, lone checkers can be hit and sent back, and a doubling cube lets either player raise the stakes.

These are the standard rules used in clubs and tournaments. Where a rule is optional, or belongs to match play, the section says so and says whether our board uses it.

Backgammon Rules in Five Steps

1. Set up the board. Each player places 15 checkers, counted from their own side: 2 on the 24-point, 5 on the 13-point, 3 on the 8-point, and 5 on the 6-point.
2. Roll for the first move. Each player rolls one die. The higher number moves first and plays both numbers showing. Tied rolls are rolled again.
3. Move checkers by the dice. Move forward toward your home board, one die at a time. One checker may take both numbers if the point it touches in between is open. Doubles are played four times.
4. Hit blots and enter from the bar. Landing on a single enemy checker sends it to the bar. A checker on the bar must re-enter in the opponent's home board before its owner makes any other move.
5. Bear off to win. Once all 15 of your checkers are in your home board, remove them with the dice. The first player to bear off all 15 wins 1 point, 2 for a gammon, or 3 for a backgammon, multiplied by the doubling cube.

The Board and Equipment

The board has 24 points, narrow triangles in alternating colours, arranged in four quarters of six. A raised strip down the middle, the bar, splits the board in half. Each player has 15 checkers, a pair of dice, and a dice cup. The two players share one doubling cube with the faces 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64.

Each player numbers the points 1 to 24 from their own side. Points 1 to 6 are your home board, 7 to 12 your outer board, 13 to 18 your opponent's outer board and 19 to 24 your opponent's home board. Your 1-point is your opponent's 24-point, so the two numbers for any point add up to 25. Your 7-point is called the bar point and your 13-point the midpoint.

Both home boards sit on the same side of the bar, facing each other, and either side is legal. With your home board on your right you move anticlockwise; with it on your left you move clockwise. Your opponent always moves the other way.

Starting Position

Each player sets out 15 checkers in the same pattern from their own side: 2 on the 24-point, 5 on the 13-point, 3 on the 8-point, and 5 on the 6-point. In your numbering, your opponent's checkers sit on your 1, 12, 17, and 19-points, so every stack faces an enemy stack of the same size.

The step-by-step backgammon setup guide shows the placing order, the same position with the home boards on the left, and the setup mistakes players make most often.

The Opening Roll

Each player rolls a single die. The higher number moves first and plays the two numbers on the table, their own die and the opponent's, as the opening move. If both dice match, both players roll again, so the first move of a game is never a double. That leaves 15 possible opening rolls, from 2-1 to 6-5. After the opening move, players take turns rolling both dice.

Some money games add automatic doubles: a tied opening roll turns the cube to 2 while it stays in the middle, usually no more than once a game. It is an optional house rule, not part of tournament play, and our board does not use it.

Moving Checkers

Checkers only move forward, from higher-numbered points toward your 1-point. Each die is a separate move. You can move two checkers, one per die, or one checker by both numbers, provided the point it touches after the first number is open. Doubles are played four times: a roll of 3-3 gives four moves of 3.

A checker may land on an empty point, on a point holding your own checkers, or on a point holding exactly one enemy checker. It may never land on a point holding two or more enemy checkers; that point is blocked. There is no limit to how many of your own checkers share a point. An old English rule capping a point at five checkers survives only as a regional variant.

You must use as much of the roll as the position allows:

• If any legal sequence plays both numbers, you must play both.
• After doubles, play as many of the four moves as you legally can.
• If only one number can be played, play it, even if it is the lower one.
• If either number could be played but not both, you must play the higher number.
• You may play the dice in either order, and must pick the order that lets you use both when only one order does.
• Any number that cannot be played is lost, and your turn ends.

A point you hold with two or more checkers is a made point. Consecutive made points form a prime; a full prime of six in a row cannot be passed by any enemy checker behind it until it breaks.

Hitting and the Bar

A single checker alone on a point is a blot. Land on an enemy blot and you hit it: the checker goes onto the bar. Moving on with the same checker in the same turn, called hit-and-run, is legal in standard backgammon.

A player with a checker on the bar must bring it back into play before moving anything else. It enters in the opponent's home board on the point that matches one of the dice, and it may land there on an empty point, your own point, or an enemy blot, which is hit in turn.

Any number left over after entering must still be played. If neither number gives an open entry point, the checker stays on the bar and the whole turn is lost, which players call dancing. With two or more checkers on the bar, enter as many as the dice allow; nothing else moves until all of them are in.

Against a closed board, all six home points made, a player on the bar cannot move at all until the opponent opens a point.

Bearing Off

You may start bearing off only when all 15 of your checkers are in your home board, with none on the bar or outside it. A roll of 5 removes a checker from your 5-point.

• If the point matching a die is empty, you must make a legal move with a checker on a higher point.
• If no checker sits on a higher point, you must bear off from your highest occupied point. With your farthest checker on the 4-point, a 6 bears it off.
• Bearing off is never compulsory while another legal move exists. You may move a checker down inside your home board instead.
• A checker hit during the bear-off must re-enter and travel all the way back to your home board before you take any more checkers off.

The first player to bear off all 15 checkers wins the game.

The Doubling Cube

The cube starts in the middle with 64 showing. There is no 1 face, so 64 stands for a game worth 1 until someone doubles. While the cube is in the middle either player may double; after that, only the player who owns it may.

• When: only at the start of your own turn, before you roll.
• Take: your opponent accepts, the game continues at twice the stake, and the cube moves to their side. Only they can make the next double, a redouble.
• Drop: your opponent refuses and loses at once, paying the stake as it stood before the double. A dropped double always counts as a single game, never a gammon.
• No limit: the cube can keep doubling past 64. The only restriction is that the same player cannot double twice in a row.

Money games often add optional rules. With beavers, a player who is doubled may take and immediately redouble while keeping the cube. The Jacoby rule, named after Oswald Jacoby, counts gammons and backgammons as single games unless the cube has been turned during the game.

Match play, a series of games to a set number of points, adds the Crawford rule, named after John R. Crawford. Once either player is one point from winning the match, the next game is played with the cube out of play, and doubling resumes the game after.

Winning: Gammons and Backgammons

How far behind the loser is when the last checker comes off decides the size of the win. Every result is multiplied by the value on the cube.

In money play each game is settled on its own. In match play every game adds its points to a running total, and the first player to reach the agreed score wins the match. A game of backgammon cannot end in a draw.

How Our Board Plays the Rules

Our board plays standard backgammon, one game at a time. The rules above apply as written, with these specifics:

• White's home board is on the bottom right, so White moves anticlockwise from the 24-point to the 1-point and Black moves clockwise.
• Tied opening rolls are rolled again. There are no automatic doubles.
• The board only offers legal moves, enforces the use-both-dice and higher-number rules, and passes your turn when no number can be played.
• The Bear Off button appears once all 15 of your checkers are home and the selected checker can come off.
• The winner of the opening roll cannot double before the first move; after that, either player may double at the start of their turn while the cube is centred or on their side. The offer panel shows the new stake and what declining concedes.
• Each game is scored on its own: 1, 2, or 3 points times the cube. With no match score there is no Crawford rule, and without the Jacoby rule a gammon scores 2 even when nobody has doubled. Beavers are not used.

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