Backgammon Rules

  Backgammon is played by two people sitting at the opposite sides of the board.

  The board consists of two parts divided by a ridge (which is called the bar) in the middle. There are 24 narrow triangles (which are called points), grouped into four quadrants, six triangles in each. The quadrants are Home Board, Outer board and the opponent’s Home board and Outer board. The points are numbered for both players starting with 1 and ending with 24. So, your first position is the 24th for your opponent and vice versa.

  Each player has 15 checkers. When the game starts both have 5 checkers on the 6th position, 3 checkers on the 8th position, 5 checkers on the 13th position and 2 checkers on the 24th position.

  The aim of each player is to move his checkers to the Home board and then bear them off. The checkers are moved according to the doubling dice. Players take turns throwing dice and then move the checkers. The dice show how many points (or pips) a player can move his checker.

  If the dice indicate 1 and 6 a player can move one checker to six and another checker to seven points. A checker can be moved only to an open point that is a point occupied by less than two checkers.

  If a player moves one checker two times, he should count two moves. That means that if the dice show 1 and 6 and either the first or the second point should be open.

  If a player rolls doubles, he can move his checkers twice. That means that if the dice show 4-4, a player can move 4 checkers to 4 points, or 2 checkers to 8 points etc.

  A player should use both numbers of the dice if it is possible. If he is able to use only one – he should use the bigger one. If he can’t use either of the numbers he loses his turn. In other cases he just uses as many numbers as possible.

  If a point is occupied by a player’s single checker, his opponent can hit this checker by placing the one of his own on the same point. If this happens the checker which has been hit is put on the bar.

  In this case the player whose checker has been hit has to enter into opposing home board. He rolls dice and moves it from the bar to an open point on the opponent’s home board. If he can’t enter because the points are occupied, he loses hi turn. If he has several checkers on the bar he should enter as many of them as possible. After the checkers enter they should be moved to the Home board once again.

  As soon as a player moves all his checkers to his Home board he has to bear his checkers off that is to remove them from the board. A player removes the checker which corresponds the number shown by the dice. Thus after rolling 6 you can bear off the checker on the point 6 etc. If there is no checker on the point which corresponds the dice, a player should remove a checker from a higher numbered point.

  A player who bears off all his checkers is considered a winner.

  If a loser has not borne any of his chips, he is gammoned and pays the double stake. But if the loser has not borne any of his checkers and has a checker on the bar or on the winner’s home board, he is backgammoned and pays three times more.

  As far as stakes are concerned, backgammon is played for an agreed stake per point. A player can double the stake if he expects he would win. He may do it only during his turn and before throwing the dice. He should be the owner of the cube to be able to double.

  His opponent may refuse to play with doubled stakes. In this case he is considered a loser and pays one point. If he accepts, the stakes become twice bigger and he is the new owner of the cube. The same is with redoubles. If a player refuses to redouble, he should pay the number of points, which was before the redoubling. The number of redoubles is not limited.

The Crawford Rule

There was a time when someone could say the word "Crawford", and it resulted in a vigorous discussion about backgammon. Today if that word escapes the lips, it is an invitation for anyone to express their political views. Many liked things much better when "Crawford" had more to do with the game of backgammon than with geopolitical issues.

In the context of backgammon, there is something called "The Crawford Rule". This will be old hat to those who have been playing the game for a while, but it may be new to the novices.

The Crawford Rule is a common rule of match play. It simply states that if one player is within one point of victory in the match, the next game should be played without a doubling cube. This rule only applies to the game directly after the one where a player was within one point of a match victory.

There are those who feel that this is unfair, and disagree bitterly with the Crawford Rule, but there is a method to the madness. First of all, if there was no doubling allowed when a player finds himself at match point, then the player who is far behind in the match would have a snowballs chance in Jamaica of ever coming back. If a moratorium is put on doubling, then the player who is one point away from total victory may as well just be called the winner. This would not be fair to the person who is playing from behind. Conversely, allowing unlimited doubling punishes the person who earned his points. This tilts the playing field and gives an unfair advantage to the player who needs to make a big comeback.

The Crawford Rule is a good compromise that is fair to both players. The playing field remains evenly balanced and nobody can whine about losing the match. The Crawford Rule helps ensure civility in the game of backgammon.

Backgammon Dice Rules

When you are tossing dice on the backgammon board, you need to know what you are doing. Sure, most of the time you are simply rolling dice to move checkers, but there are a few nuances that the average backgammon player may not know, and so a review of the basic backgammon dice rules are in order.

Four dice are used in the game, usually, one color coded set for each player (and not counting the doubling cube.) Both of a player's dice are rolled on the board, and both numbers of the roll must be used as long as it is a legal move. Each die represents a move of one checker, so one roll produces two moves, or four if doubles are rolled.

For example, a roll of 3,4 means that a player must move one checker three points and one four, or a single checker 7 points. A roll of 5,5 results in four total five-point moves, used as allowed with one, two, three or four checkers.

One subtlety that many players don't know is that if each number COULD be used, but not BOTH numbers, then the highest number must be used. If you have a roll of 3,4 and you could move one checker 3 or 4, and no other checker could be moved either 3 or 4, than that single checker must be moved 4.

That's it for the simple and basic backgammon dice rules - they are very basic to understand, but it is in the application of the dice rules that winners emerge.