Two ways to win more than a single point — and why they change how you play.
Most backgammon games are worth one point. A game becomes worth more when the loser is not merely behind but stranded.
| Term | Points | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Single game | 1 | The loser has borne off at least one checker. |
| Gammon | 2 | The loser has borne off no checkers at all. |
| Backgammon | 3 | The loser has borne off nothing and still has a checker on the bar or in the winner's home board. |
The condition is about the loser's position at the moment the game ends, not about how the game was played. One checker borne off — even the very last roll before defeat — reduces a gammon to a single game.
Gammons change cube decisions more than they change checker play. If you are winning and gammons are live, doubling can be a mistake — your opponent drops for one point and you lose the extra point you were on track to win. If you are losing and gammons are live against you, a take that would otherwise be routine becomes wrong, because some of your losses now cost four rather than two.
Gammons are common — a substantial fraction of decided games. Backgammons are rare, typically a percent or two, because they require the loser to have a checker still trapped in the winner's home board at the very end.
Because a gammon depends on the loser bearing off nothing, gammon chances collapse the instant your opponent takes their first checker off — from whatever they were straight to zero. Game review shows this: the gammon band under the win curve vanishes at that exact move.
Review a finished game to see how the gammon and backgammon chances moved with each play.
Open GammonPrep