Casino Games
BACKGAMMON
Backgammon is a game of both luck and skill and is normally played by two people with 15 counters a piece on a board consisting of 24 points. The counters are moved according to the roll of the two dice. Each player tries to bring his own counters home and get them off before his other player, blocking or landing on the other player’s counters along the way.
Backgammon has been around for an extremely long time, with the origins dating back over 5000 years. Both the ancient Greeks and the Romans were known to have played the game. Backgammon as we know it today was refined in England in the 17th century; it also acquired the name backgammon around the same time. One significant development in the 20th century was the addition of the doubling dice, used for gambling, at some time around the 1920’s.
Fortunately backgammon enjoyed a revival back in the 1970’s and then again more recently in the 1990s helped in no small part by the popularity of the Internet, allowing you to play at any time of the day or night with like minded people from all over the world.
Basic Rules and odds
The players are trying to get all of their pieces past the other player's pieces. The pieces are setup around the board and can be either blocked or captured by the other player's pieces.
Each side of the board has a row of twelve spaces also known as points and are usually long triangles of alternating colour. The points are connected across the break or bridge in the middle of the board making a continuous track of 24 points. The points are numbered from 1 to 24 (not literally), with counters always moving from higher-numbered points to lower-numbered points. The two players move their counters in opposite directions which means that 1st point for one player is the 24th point for the other.
Each player begins with 2 counters on the 24th point, 3 counters on the 8th point, and 5 counters each on the 13th point and the 6th point.
The board can be turned round either way with starting positions and direction of play flipped without any change to the game-play as the boards are all designed to be played either way.
Points 1 to 6 are where the player wants to get their pieces to and are known as the home board. A player can’t "bear off" (take off) any counters unless all of his counters are in their home board. Points 7 to 12 are known as the outer board, points 13 to 18 and are the other player's outer board, points 19 to 24 are the other player's home board.
At the start of the game, each player rolls one dice. Whoever rolls the higher goes first using the numbers already rolled. In the case of a tie players roll again. The players take alternate turns rolling two dice.
After rolling a player must whenever possible move their counters the number of points shown on each dice. E.g. if they roll a 4 and a 2, they must move one counter 4 points forward and another one 2 points forward, in either order. The same counter can be moved twice as long as the two moves are distinct: 4 and then 2, or 2 and then 4, but not 6 in one go.
If a player has no possible moves after rolling, because all of the points are occupied by two or more opposition counters, he misses a turn. A player must always play both dice if possible. If they have a possible move for one dice only, they must make that move and disregard the other dice. If they have a possible move for one or the other dice, but not both, then they must play the higher.
If a player rolls two of the same number, this is known as a double, then they must play each number on the dice twice e.g., on rolling a 6 and a 6, he must play 4 counters forward 6 spaces each. A single counter can be moved in multiple turns as long as they are distinct.
A counter can land on any point not occupied by other counters or only occupied by their own counters; it can also land on a point occupied by just one opposition counter this is known as a blot. The blot has now been taken and is put on the middle of the board on the bar. A counter can not land on a point occupied by two or more opposition counters so no point can ever be occupied by counters from both players.
Counters on the bar can re-enter the game through the other player's home end. E.g. a roll of 1 allows the counter to enter on the 24th point, a roll of 2 on the 23rd point and so on. A player with one or more counters on the bar can’t move any other counters until all of the counters on the bar have re-entered the game.
When all of a player's counters are in their home end, they can remove them from the board (or bear them off). A roll of 1 can be used to bear off a counter from the 1st point, a 2 from the 2nd point and so on. A number can’t be used to bear off any counters from a lower point unless there aren’t any counters on the higher points e.g. a 4 can be used to bear off a counter from the 3rd point only if there are no counters on the 4th, 5th, and 6th points.
A counter borne off from a point lower than indicated on the dice still counts as the full dice. If a player has only one counter on his 2nd point and two counters on his 1st point. Then on rolling a 1 & 2, they can move the counter from the 2nd point to the 1st point using the 1 rolled, and then bear off from the 1st point using the 2nd rolled. They are not required to use the rolled 2 by bearing off from the 2nd point.
If one player has not borne off any of their counters by the time the other player has borne off all fifteen, they have lost a gammon; this will count as twice a normal loss. If a player has not borne off any counters, and still has counters on the bar and/or in his other player's home board by the time the other player has borne off all fifteen, he has lost a backgammon, which counts for three times. Sometimes a distinction is made between pieces in the other player's home board (triple loss) and pieces on the bar (quadruple loss).
