Backgammon

Objective

You play the light checkers, moving them counter-clockwise from the top-right around to your home board (bottom right, points 1-6). Once all 15 of your checkers are home, you bear them off. First to bear off all 15 wins.

Basic Rules

• Roll two dice; each die is a separate move. Doubles are played four times.
• You may only land on open points: empty, your own, or with exactly one enemy checker (a blot, which gets hit and sent to the bar).
• A checker on the bar must re-enter in the opponent's home board before any other move.
• You must play as many dice as possible; if only one die can be played, it must be the higher one when possible. The game enforces this automatically.
• Bearing off: with all checkers home, a die removes a checker from the matching point; higher rolls may bear off from the highest occupied point.

Controls

• Click / tap a highlighted checker, then a highlighted destination to move
• SPACE - Roll the dice
• U - Undo your moves this turn
• N - New game
• M - Mute sounds

Scoring

• Win: 1 point
• Gammon (loser bore off nothing): 2 points
• Backgammon (loser also has a checker on the bar or in the winner's home board): 3 points
• The doubling cube is not used in this version.

Tips

• Avoid leaving blots where your opponent can hit them, especially in their reach
• Make points (two or more checkers) in your home board to block re-entry after you hit
• The 5-point and bar-point (7) are the most valuable points to hold
• When ahead in the pip count race, avoid contact; when behind, play a holding game