How to play backgammon
Backgammon is a race for two players. Move all fifteen of your checkers around the board and off it before your opponent does, using two dice, a little luck and a lot of judgement.
5-minute read · Beginner
1. The board and the setup
The board has 24 narrow triangles called points, in four quarters of six. Your home board is points 1 to 6, bottom right. The ridge down the middle is the bar.
Each player starts with 15 checkers: two on the 24-point, five on the 13-point, three on the 8-point and five on the 6-point. Your opponent's checkers are set out the same way from their side, so the two of you move in opposite directions.
2. Rolling and moving
To start, each player rolls one die. The higher roll moves first, using both numbers. After that, take turns rolling two dice.
Each die is a separate move. With a 5 and a 3 you can move one checker 5 and another 3, or one checker 8 in two steps. You can land on an empty point, a point with your own checkers, or a point with a single opposing checker. A point with two or more opposing checkers is blocked.
Doubles play four times: a 4 and a 4 means four moves of 4. You must use both dice if you can. If only one can be played, you must play the larger one if possible. If neither can be played, your turn passes.
On OneGammon you don't need to count: tap a checker and the points it can reach are marked. You can undo your moves until your turn ends.
3. Hitting and the bar
A single checker alone on a point is called a blot. Land on an opposing blot and you hit it: it goes to the bar in the middle of the board.
A player with a checker on the bar must bring it back in before moving anything else. It enters in the opponent's home board, on the point matching a die: a 3 enters on the opponent's 3-point, which is your 22-point. If both entry points are blocked, the turn is lost.
4. Bearing off
Once all fifteen of your checkers are in your home board, you can start bearing them off. A die takes a checker off from the matching point: a 4 bears off from the 4-point.
You may use a higher die to bear off from your highest occupied point. If a checker is hit while you are bearing off, it has to come all the way round again before you can bear off any more.
5. Winning: single, gammon and backgammon
The first player to bear off all fifteen checkers wins. If the loser has borne off at least one checker, it's a single game, worth 1 point.
If the loser hasn't borne off any checkers, it's a gammon, worth 2. If the loser still has a checker on the bar or in the winner's home board, it's a backgammon, worth 3.
6. The doubling cube and the Crawford rule
Before rolling, a player may offer to double the stakes. The opponent either takes, and the game goes on for twice as much with the cube now theirs to double next, or passes and loses the game at the current stakes.
Matches are played to a number of points, such as 5. The first time a player gets within one point of winning, the next game is the Crawford game, played without the cube. After that, doubling is allowed again. OneGammon applies this for you.