How to Play Backgammon

The game of backgammon starts with each player participating rolling the die. Then the player who has the higher number will move first. Each of the players then take turns in playing. Each of them rolls their dice at the start of each of their turn.

After each roll of the dice, the player must move the checkers in accordance to the amount of pips shown on each of the die. An example would be that if a player rolls a 6 and a 3 which is also "6-3", the player must move a single checker forward for six points and then another three points forward. Another option is a player may also move the same checker twice as long as both the moves are different from each other like three then six or six then three, but not all the nine moves at the same time or all at once.

A doubles is played if the player rolls two the same numbers. In this case the player must play each of the die two times. Like if upon the rolling of the dice a 5-5 combination happened then the player must move four of the checkers forward and maintaining five spaces per movement.

A checker could also land on any of the points as long as it is either occupied by the player's own checkers or if it is unoccupied. It could also land on a point occupied by an opponent's checker; such a piece alone is termed as a blot. In such a case, the blot is hit or it has been hit.

The blot will then be positioned in the middle of the backgammon board, placing in on the bar which stands as a divider between the outer boards and the home boards. A player's checker can never at any time land on any point occupied by more than two checkers of the opponent; hence, there is no point that should ever be occupied by checkers coming from the same player.

The checkers placed on the bar will again enter the game by entering in the opponent's home board. A Backgammon player can not move any of the other checkers until all of the checkers he has on the bar have entered again the field of the opponent's field or "home field".

The time will come when all of a participant's checkers are in his own home board, he must then bear off which means to remove the checkers from the home board. A single roll could be used to bear off a single checker from one point or 2 checkers from the 2 points. A die can not be used to bear off from a point containing a lower number unless in the event only of having no checkers on the points which are higher.

A player who hasn't been able to bear off any checkers and his opponent has to bear all the fifteen checkers then that player has lost a gammon, but if the loser still has some checkers on the opponent's bar in the home bard, he lost backgammon.