How Desperate and Crafty Are You Without a Board?

It may be a rare occurrence, but there may come a time when you find yourself up a creek without a backgammon board and you are desperate to play. It could happen on the road when you travel, visit friends, have the company picnic, or when you've just moved to a new neighborhood and all your boxes haven't arrived yet (especially that one that is lovingly caring your favorite backgammon set).

Now, we are talking REALLY desperate here. In situations like these and the need for backgammon is strong, it's time to test just how crafty and imaginative you can be. If you pick the pockets (not literally) of other's in the house, you could probably come up with enough nickels and pennies to complete a full set of checkers for each side. Now what about the board itself? If you are no artist, you can even give this next task to the kids. Have them take a large sheet of construction paper and size it to roughly the size of a big backgammon board, then fold it in half, length-wise. Using a pencil first to outline the jagged pip "teeth" or positions, you use scissors to cut out along the outline of each pip - thus, when you remove the excess paper and unfold the leftover cutout, you have your board layout (it works!).

Last, we need dice. If there are not those giant fluffy kind hanging from your Grandpa's car mirror for you to borrow, then try taking any cube-shaped object - yes, even a couple of Rubik's Cubes - and custom designing your own dice. Remember, it doesn't have to be pretty, just functional!