Your very first Backgammon game in 10 steps

You don't need much to get started:

• A backgammon set — a board, 30 checkers (15 light, 15 dark) and a pair of dice.
• An opponent — backgammon is a game for two players.
• A flat surface — a table, the floor, anywhere steady.

Optional extras you can ignore for now: a dice cup (for tidy rolls) and a doubling cube (for raising the stakes).

The board has 24 thin triangles called points. They run in two rows — 12 along the top, 12 along the bottom — and are numbered so we can talk about them.

A raised ridge down the middle, the bar, splits the board into four groups of six. The six points in the bottom-right are your home board (shown in gold) — that's where your checkers eventually gather.

In one sentence: move all 15 of your checkers into your home board, then take them off the board.

Taking them off is called bearing off. The first player to bear off all 15 checkers wins the game. Everything else is just how you get there.

Place the checkers exactly as shown. You play the light checkers:

• 2 on point 24
• 5 on point 13
• 3 on point 8
• 5 on point 6

Your opponent mirrors you with the dark checkers. Both players always start from this same position.

You always move your checkers toward your home board, following the numbers downward — from 24 toward 1, looping around the board (follow the gold path).

Your opponent moves the opposite way, toward their own home. You never move backwards.

Each player rolls one die. The higher number goes first.

That opening player then moves using both dice just rolled (yours and your opponent's). Rolled the same number? Roll again until someone wins.

Example. You (light) roll a 4; your opponent (dark) rolls a 2. You're higher, so you start — and you play both numbers. A strong opening is 8→4 (using the 4 on your die) together with 6→4 (using the 2 on your opponent's die), placing two of your checkers on the 4-point.

That first move was special — it used the two dice from the opening roll-off. From here on, every turn works the same way: whoever is to move rolls two dice of their own. Each die is a separate move — move one checker by the first number and another by the second, or move a single checker twice (first number, then the other).

Roll a double (for example two 3s)? Lucky you: you play that number four times.

Back to our game. You made your 4-point, so now it's your opponent's turn. They roll a 5 and a 3. Remember they move the other way (from 1 toward 24), and they have several choices — for instance the 5 as 12→17, and the 3 as 12→15 or 19→22.

Here's the neat part: your new 4-point (together with your 6-point) traps their back checkers on point 1 — neither a 3 (1→4) nor a 5 (1→6) is allowed. Curious why? You'll find out in the next step!

You may move a checker onto a point if it is:

• empty, or
• already holding your own checkers, or
• holding exactly one enemy checker (called a blot).

You cannot land on a point with two or more enemy checkers — it's blocked.

Back to our game. Your opponent has just moved a checker to point 22, so a single dark checker — a blot — now sits there. It's your turn and you roll a 5 and a 2. Your three legal moves happen to show all three cases at once:

• 8→3 (the 5) — onto an empty point.
• 13→8 (the 5) — onto your own point.
• 24→22 (the 2) — onto a point with a single enemy checker. Allowed!

What you can't do is 24→19 (the 5): your opponent holds point 19 with several checkers, so it's blocked.

That move onto point 22 lands right on a lone enemy checker — so you knock it off the board. Where does it go? That's the next step.

Land on a point holding a single enemy checker and you hit it. The hit checker is lifted off and placed on the bar in the middle.

A player with a checker on the bar must bring it back into play first — re-entering in the opponent's home board — before making any other move. Getting hit can cost you a lot of ground, so keep an eye on your blots!

Once all 15 of your checkers are in your home board, you can start bearing off.

Roll the dice and remove checkers sitting on the matching points (roll a 6 → take a checker off point 6, and so on). The first player to bear off all 15 checkers wins.

That's a complete game. You won't play it perfectly the first time — nobody does. Just roll the dice and learn by playing.

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