Understanding the Math of the Dice

The dice are your vehicle in backgammon. They are what moves your pieces into your home and into scoring position. On the surface, they appear to be a pretty unreliable vehicle, like a Jaguar or Alfa. They don't always do what you want them to do, and sometimes they do the exact opposite of what you want them to do, but unlike high end automobiles, there is a rhyme and reason for the way the dice act the way they do, and it's simple math.

You have a one in six chance of getting the number you want on any single dice. When you take the pair of dice into consideration, you have an eleven in thirty-six chance of getting the number you want.

Here's how that breaks down. Let's say you want a six. On a single dice, there are six possibilties, and only one of those is a "six," so your chance is one in six. But you roll two dice. There are thirty-six possible combinations of numbers you can roll. Since you want a six, you're hoping for one of the following rolls: 6-6, 6-5, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, 1-6, 2-6, 3-6, 4-6, and 5-6, a total of eleven possibilities. This is just about a one in three chance.

What does this mean? Well, you have about a 33% chance of getting the roll you want, which means you should be projecting around three possible moves that you want to make to have a solid chance of getting at least one of them. Therefore, the more you want to do, the better your chances of getting to do, while conversely, the more focused your plan, the less likely you'll get what you need.

Backgammon's dice, like the cockpit of a Lotus, encourage flexibility.