How to play Backgammon

1 player vs computer, or 2 online

Move all fifteen of your checkers round the board into your own home board, then bear them all off before your opponent does the same.

The rules, step by step

1. 1

   Tap the dice to roll. You get two numbers, and a double gives you four moves of that number rather than two.

2. 2

   Tap a point to pick a checker up. The points it can reach light up, and you tap one to move there.

3. 3

   A point with two or more enemy checkers is closed and you cannot land on it. A point with exactly one is a blot: land there and that checker goes to the bar.

4. 4

   While you have a checker on the bar, nothing else you own may move. It re-enters on your opponent's home board, on the point matching one of your dice.

5. 5

   Once all fifteen of your checkers are in your home board you may start bearing off. An exact roll takes a checker off. A larger roll takes one off your highest occupied point, but only if nothing is further back.

6. 6

   You must use both dice if any order lets you. If only one of them can be played, you must play the larger.

Three tips that change how you play

• Do not leave blots you do not have to. A checker alone can be hit, and being hit costs you the entire journey it had already made, which is far more than the few pips a safe move gives up.
• Make points in front of your opponent's back checkers. Six made points in a row is a prime and nothing gets past it, and even three or four in the right place will hold a checker for several turns.
• Once the two sides have passed each other it is a pure race and nothing else matters. Count pips. If you are ahead, run. If you are behind, stay back and wait for a shot.

Why the blot costs more than it looks

Say you are twenty pips ahead in the race, and you can play a five two ways: bring a back checker up to safety, or move a checker in your outer board and leave a single one exposed halfway home. The exposed one is hit about one roll in three, so it looks like a small risk for a better position. It is not. If it is hit it goes to the bar and has to come all the way back in, sixty pips or more, which turns a twenty-pip lead into a forty-pip deficit in a single roll. You may not even be able to re-enter if their home board is well made. A one-in-three chance of losing sixty pips is worse than a certainty of losing five. The rule follows from the arithmetic: when you are ahead in the race, take the safe move almost every time, and save the risky ones for when you are behind and need something to happen.

Three mistakes that cost beginners the game

Stacking five or six checkers on one point because it is safe.

A tall stack is doing almost nothing. Only the top checker can move usefully and the rest are out of play. Spread out and make new points instead: four points with two checkers each beats two points with five.

Running your back checkers out at the first opportunity.

Two checkers on your opponent's home board are not stranded, they are an anchor. They are safe there, and they give you somewhere to land if you get hit later. Move them out when the coast is clear, not on principle.

Playing the die that suits you rather than the one you have to.

If only one of your two numbers can be played, the rules require the larger. If some order plays both, you must find it. The board will not offer you the illegal option, but knowing the rule stops you being surprised when the move you wanted is missing from the list.

Common questions about Backgammon