Why a lone backgammon checker is the risk

Published

This is one subject: a single checker on a point can be sent to the bar, and this edition will not let you double the stakes to avoid that. Fifteen checkers a side, no doubling cube, and the dice you are given are the dice you must use.

1. The opening roll picks the first player

Each side rolls one die. A tie is rolled again. The higher side moves first and plays both of those numbers. After that, each turn is two dice, and a double is four moves of that number.

2. Use the roll you were given

You must play as much of the roll as the position allows. If only one of two different dice can be played, you play the higher one when that higher number has a legal landing. You do not choose a smaller number because it feels safer. A checker on the bar has to enter before any other checker of that side moves.

3. Bearing off waits until the home board is full of your own checkers

You may bear a checker off only when every checker you still have is in your home board. The first player to bear off all fifteen wins. There is no cube. On the local score list a single win is 1, a gammon is 2, and a backgammon is 3. Online dice are chosen on the server. A local game uses the browser’s random numbers. Neither one lets the opponent type the roll.

Examples on this board

  1. A tied opening. Both sides show a 4. The board rolls again. A 6 against a 3 means the side with the 6 starts and must play 6 and 3, not a fresh pair.
  2. A blot. One of your checkers sits alone. The opponent lands on that point with a die. Your checker goes to the bar. Until it enters, you cannot move the checkers that are still on the board.
  3. The higher die is the one that plays. The roll is 6 and 1. The 1 has a landing and the 6 also has a landing, but you only have room to use one of them. The move that uses the 6 is the legal one. Leaving the 6 unused to keep a checker safe is rejected.
  4. Bearing off too early. Fourteen checkers are home and one is outside. The bear-off tray is not available. You spend the roll on the checker that is still out, or on a home-board move the dice allow. You do not lift a home checker off while that last one is outside.
  5. Server dice, then a quiet queue. In an online game the roll arrives from the server and the checker moves have to match it. If you instead join the public queue and no one else is there, the page waits about ten seconds, says no opponent joined, and starts a computer game. That computer’s dice are the local ones, and the cube is still absent.

Why it matters

A faster race looks like the whole game until one checker is hit and has to come back past a closed home board. This edition will not let you turn the cube and force a take-or-drop decision. The only protection on offer is the point you actually made, and the only roll on offer is the one the dice already showed.

The date is the day this was checked against the live table: no cube, server dice online, and the about-ten-second computer game when the queue is empty.

Closing

Enter from the bar first, play the larger legal die when only one number fits, and leave a blot only when you can stand it being hit. Bear off after the last outside checker is home. An empty queue becomes a computer game after about ten seconds. The about page and the privacy page cover the site and the stored session, not a second set of rules.