Backgammon

How to play Backgammon

Not from the book. The rules are the modern game's, as the World Backgammon Federation and Wikipedia give them; the family goes back to Persian nard and Roman tabula. The doubling cube is left out.

From the sources

• Twenty-four points in four quarters, fifteen checkers each. White runs from point 24 down to point 1 and bears off from there; black runs the other way, from 1 to 24. Each side's home is its last six points.
• To begin, each player throws one die; the higher moves first with the two dice thrown. Then the players throw two dice in turn.
• Each die moves one checker that many points — the same checker twice if you like, as long as the middle point is open. Doubles are played four times.
• A point with two or more of the opponent's checkers is closed. A point with one is a blot: land on it and the blot is hit and goes to the bar.
• A checker on the bar must enter the opponent's home — on the point the die names, counted from the far end — before anything else moves.
• Both dice must be played when they can be; if only one can, the higher must be played when it can.
• Bearing off begins when all fifteen checkers are home. A die takes a checker off from the point it names; a higher die takes the farthest checker when no checker stands on a higher point.
• The first to bear off all fifteen wins. If the loser has borne none off, it is a gammon.

My choices

• No doubling cube and no match play: one game at a time. A gammon or backgammon is named at the end, nothing more.
• The board stands on end for the phone: white's home is bottom right, black's bottom left; the bar and the trays are in the middle.
• The machine weighs every full play of the throw and looks no further: pips, checkers off, points made, blots by the chance of a hit, checkers on the bar. Easy picks among the better half at random.

New game