Everything you need to start a game, in the order you'll need it.
Backgammon is a race. You and your opponent each have fifteen checkers, you move in opposite directions around the board, and the first player to bring all fifteen home and off the board wins. Everything else — hitting, blocking, the doubling cube — exists to interfere with that race.
The board has twenty-four narrow triangles called points, numbered from 1 to 24. Each player numbers them from their own perspective, so your 1-point is your opponent's 24-point. The board divides into four quadrants of six points each: your home board, your outer board, and your opponent's two.
The bar is the ridge down the middle. Checkers that have been hit sit there and must re-enter before their owner may make any other move.
Each player starts with fifteen checkers placed identically, mirrored:
Each player rolls one die to decide who starts; the higher roll goes first and plays those two numbers. If they tie, both roll again. After that, players alternate, rolling two dice per turn.
The two dice are two separate moves. A roll of 5 and 3 means moving one checker five points and another three, or moving a single checker five then three — as long as each step lands somewhere legal on its own. Rolling doubles gives you four moves of that number rather than two.
You always move toward your home board, which means toward lower-numbered points from your own perspective. You must use both numbers if there is any legal way to do so; if only one can be played, you must play the higher one.
A hit checker goes to the bar and starts its journey again from the very beginning. While you have any checker on the bar you may do nothing else — your entire turn must go toward re-entering it in your opponent's home board, on the point matching one of your dice. If both of those points are blocked, you forfeit the turn.
Once all fifteen of your checkers are in your home board — your 1-point through 6-point — you may start bearing them off. A roll of 4 removes a checker from your 4-point. If that point is empty, you must make a legal move within your home board instead; only when no checker remains on a higher point may you use the roll to bear off from a lower one.
If you get hit while bearing off, that checker goes back to the bar and must travel the whole board again before you can resume.
The first player to bear off all fifteen checkers wins. How much they win depends on how far behind the loser was:
| Result | Worth | When |
|---|---|---|
| Single | 1 point | The loser has borne off at least one checker. |
| Gammon | 2 points | The loser has borne off none. |
| Backgammon | 3 points | The loser has borne off none and still has a checker on the bar or in the winner's home board. |
The doubling cube multiplies whichever of those results occurs, which is why a gammon is so much more valuable once the stake has been raised.
The fastest way to learn the rules is to play a game against an opponent that explains its thinking.
Play a game