Backgammon

Components

A two-player game. Each player takes one color, white or black.

Setup and objective

1. 1Each player takes 15 checkers and sets up the standard starting position. The doubling cube is placed in the middle with its 64 face up, marking the game as undoubled (value 1).
2. 2Each player rolls one die. The player with the higher number moves first, using both numbers rolled by both players combined for that opening move (for example, if White rolls 5 and Black rolls 3, White plays using both the 5 and the 3). If the rolls tie, roll again.
3. 3The goal is to move all 15 of your own checkers into your home board (points 1–6 for White, 19–24 for Black) and then be the first to bear all of them off the board.

Taking a turn — moving with the dice

1. 1On your turn, roll 2 dice and move checkers by each number, either with two different checkers or one checker using both numbers in sequence. Checkers always move from your higher-numbered points toward your lower-numbered points.
2. 2Rolling doubles (the same number on both dice) lets you move that number four times. For example, rolling 5-5 allows four separate moves of 5 spaces each.
3. 3A checker may not land on a point held by 2 or more opposing checkers (a blocked point). It may land on an open point, a point you already occupy, or a point with a single opposing checker (a blot).

Hitting blots and the bar

A point held by only one checker is a blot. If an opponent's move lands exactly on that point, they hit it and send it to the bar.

• A checker on the bar must re-enter in the opponent's home board (the same region you started from) before you may move any other checker. Check which point matches the die you rolled.
• If you have more than one checker on the bar, enter as many as you can; if you cannot enter them all, the rest of your turn is forfeited. While any checker remains on the bar, no other checker may move.
• If an opponent occupies all six points of their home board with 2 or more checkers each, that is a closed board, and you cannot enter until they open at least one point.

Bearing off

You may only begin bearing off once all 15 of your checkers are inside your home board. If even one checker is still outside it, or on the bar, you cannot start.

1. 1If a die matches the number of a point that still has a checker, bear off that checker.
2. 2If that point is empty and no higher-numbered point has a checker either, you may use that die to bear off from the current highest occupied point.
3. 3If a checker is hit during bear-off, it must re-enter the board, and bearing off pauses until it is back home.

The doubling cube and scoring

The doubling cube sets the stake multiplier for the game. On your turn, before rolling the dice, whichever side holds the cube (at the start of the game, either side) may offer a double.

• The player offered a double may accept or decline. Declining ends the game immediately, and the player who declined loses at the cube value in effect at the time of the offer.
• Accepting doubles the cube value and passes the cube to the player who accepted; only that player may offer the next redouble.
• In match play, once a player is one point away from winning the match (match point), neither player may offer a double in the next game. This is the Crawford rule.

Ending and winning

1. 1Whoever bears off all 15 checkers first wins that game.
2. 2A single money game decides the result in one game; match play plays to a target score (e.g. 7 points) to decide the overall winner.
3. 3The final score is the cube value in effect for that game × the gammon/backgammon multiplier.

Basic strategy

• Avoid leaving single checkers exposed — stacking 2 or more on a point makes it yours and removes the risk of being hit there.
• Since both dice numbers must be used whenever legally possible, think ahead about which landing spots keep both numbers playable before you roll.
• During bear-off, make active use of the overshoot rule (using a high, empty die number to bear off from the highest point you still occupy).
• Offer the doubling cube when you have a clearly favorable position, and when receiving one, weigh the loss from declining against your chances if you accept.

Match formats and variants

On top of the standard rules, backgammon is played as a single money game or as match play (first to a target score across several games); match play also uses the Crawford rule.

• Acey-deucey: Players start with no checkers on the board and enter them one at a time, with rolling 1-2 granting a special bonus move.
• Hypergammon: A simplified variant using only 3 checkers per player, finishing much faster than standard backgammon.
• Nackgammon: A variant that uses a different starting arrangement than the standard setup. This guide does not cover its exact point placement.
• Russian backgammon: Both players move in the same direction toward a shared home board, changing the direction rule itself.

Frequently asked questions

History and today

Games in the 'tables' family, where players race checkers home, trace back roughly 1,600 years to Tabula, known from the era of Byzantine Emperor Zeno. The earliest specific reference to the name 'backgammon' is a 1647 letter, and the game developed out of the 16th-century game 'Irish'.

Francis Willoughby documented the rules around 1672 and Charles Cotton in 1674, and Edmond Hoyle's 1753 treatise helped popularize the game widely. By no later than 1850, the rules had settled into essentially their modern form, including the bar and the gammon/backgammon distinction.

The doubling cube, which decides the stakes, was introduced in the 1920s among gaming clubs on New York's Lower East Side, turning backgammon into a modern game of probability and expected value. The first world championship followed in Las Vegas in 1967, driving a surge in popularity.

Today, backgammon remains hugely popular across the Eastern Mediterranean — Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus and Greece among them — as part of coffeehouse culture, almost a national game in those regions. It remains less well known in Korea, though it is gradually being introduced through online communities.