Backgammon Variants

  Backgammon is played in many countries around the world and that’s why there are a lot of variations of the game. Here are two most popular of them.

Dutch Backgammon

  The rules are similar to the regular rules of backgammon with only two differences:

  1) At the beginning of the there are no checkers on the board. The checkers are “in hand” and each should enter the opponent’s Home board before a player can make other movements.

  2) A player is not able to take his opponent’s checker until at least one of his checkers is not at his Home board.

Acey-Deucey

  The rules of Acey-Deucey are quite similar to the ones of Dutch Backgammon but still have some significant differences.

  1) At the beginning of the game the player who acts first also chooses at what side of the board he will play.

  2) Like in Dutch Backgammon all the checkers start “in hand”, but the players should not enter all the checkers first. They can do it at any stage the game.

  3) There is a special combination, which gives the name to the whole game. It is 1-2 and is called Acey-Deucey. When the dice show 1-2 a player moves his checkers to 1 and 2 first and then chooses any double from 1 to 6 and acts as if he had rolled this double. But that is not all. After he does it he can throw the dice for the second time. However, in case a player who has rolled Acey-Deucey can’t move his checkers to 1 and 2 he loses his turn and the possibility to throw the dice for the second time.

  4) Usually there is no doubling in Acey-Deucey, but sometimes the stakes are doubled each time the dice show Acey-Deucey.

  5) There is a very witty way to determine the sum, which a loser should pay. The players multiply the initial stake to the number of he checkers still remaining on the board and get the exact sum the loser should pay.