How to Play Backgammon

The movement of playing backgammon starts with the game and each of the player
participating rolling the die, the player who has the higher number will move first. Each
of the player take turns in playing. Each of them rolls two dice at the start of each of their
turn.

After each roll of the dice, the player must move the checkers in accordance to the
amount of pips shown on each of the die. An example would be that if a player rolls a 6
and a 3 which is also “6-3”, the player must move a single checker forward for six points
and another forward for three points forward this time moving another checker, however
a player may also move the same checker twice as long as both the moves are different
from each other like three then six or six then three, but not all the nine moves at the
same time or all at once. A doubles is played if the player rolls two the same numbers. In
this case the player must play each of the die two times. Like if upon the rolling of the
dice a 5-5 combination happened then the player must move four of the checkers forward
and maintaining five spaces per movement.

A checker could also land on any of the points as long as it is either occupied by the
player’s own checkers or if it is unoccupied. It could also land on a point occupied by an
opponent’s checker; such a piece alone is termed as a blot. In such a case, the blot is hit
or it has been hit. The blot is placed will then be positioned in the middle of the
backgammon board, placing in on the bar which stands as a divider between the outer
boards and the home boards. A player’s checker should never at any time land on any
point occupied by more than two checkers of the opponent; hence, there is no point that
should ever be occupied by checkers coming from the same player. The checkers placed
on the bar will again enter the game by hitting the player’s home board. Then 2 rolls
allow the player to enter on a 23-point kind of roll. A 23-point is moved on the 22-point
of three rolls. A Backgammon player could opt to not move any of the other checkers
until all of the checkers he has on the bar have entered again the field of the opponent’s
field or “home field”.

The time will come when all of a participant’s checkers are in his own home board, he
must then bear off which means to remove the checkers from the home board. A single
roll could be used to bearing off a single checker from the one point and 2 checkers from
the 2 points. A die could not be used to bear off from a point containing a lower number
unless in the event only of having no checkers on the points which are higher.

A player who hasn’t been able to bear off any checkers and his opponent has to bear all
the fifteen checkers then that player has lost a gammon, but if the loser still has some
checkers on the opponent’s bar in the home bard, he lost backgammon.

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 Backgammon’s Doubling cube and Crawford rule

To give an additional dimension for the backgammon strategy and to speed up the game a
doubling cube is commonly used. The doubling cube is described as die with 6 sides
which are marked with numbers like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and lastly 64. When a player has a
belief that his position in the game is superior he could make a decision on his turn to
double before rolling the dice which means that the match be played two times for the
current amount at stake or what the current stakes are. A doubling cube is placed with two
of the sides facing up to show everyone that the match’s value being seen as doubled. The
opponent could choose to either give his acceptance to the challenge of the doubling cube
or resign from the match quickly. After doubling cube, there is also the right to redouble
which belongs only to the player who accepted the double last. When the redouble
happens, the cube is positioned showing the next power of two faces.

The match is redoubled rarely more than four times its’ original stake, however there is
no limit theoretically on the number of redoubles that could be made. Even though 64 is
indeed the highest number for doubling the cube as depicted, the stakes could rise up to
128 or 256 even 512 and so forth

With money matches, a backgammon player is usually allowed to beaver when being
offered a double, then doubling the value of the match again while at the same time
retaining the hold of the cube.

A Jacoby rule is a rule which allows the gammons and the backgammons to count as their
respective triple or double values only if there has been at least a use of the doubling cube
within the match. The rule convinces the player with the largest lead in the match to
double, in the hope of possibly ending the game rather than to play to the very end in
hopes of backgammon or a gammon. This rule is widely used everywhere with money
played but never used in matches.

Crawford rule is the rule which is designed to create match play more fair to the player
leading the game. This action is done if the player leading the match could be just a point
away from getting the chance to win the game, the opponent will have no advantage not
to double, even if the game is worth just one point or even two points, the result of the
match will not be affected but to balance one point away from winning a match, his
opponent has no incentive not to double; even if the game contains the value of one point
or two points, and in order to make the situation balance, the Crawford rule would require
that when a player reaches the score one point short from winning the game, nobody
could use the doubling cube for the next game, this is called the Crawford game but
afterwards the doubling cube’s normal use resumes again. This game is also used in most
of the match plays.

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 Backgammon Strategies
An opening theory in playing Backgammon has long been established, although it is
lesser in details than games like chess. The checker positions has a tree that quickly
expands because of the possible number of dice rolls and the moves that are available for
each turn In a recent computer analysis, Backgammon offers more insight for the opening
moves but the midgame is quickly reached however and after the opening moves, the
player usually rely on the general strategies that have been established already and
combines or switches the strategies for adaptability as the conditions of the game changes
as it is being played.

A successful strategy proven is the most direct sometimes and it is to simply avoid the
chance of getting hit, trapped or getting into the situation of being blocked mutually of
stand-offs. A running game is a strategy which involves moving the checkers as quickly
as possible. The checkers are moved around the board, and a player becomes more
successful if he is ahead of the running game or the running race.

The holding game is a strategy where the player keeps a certain point high in the board of
the opponent as the game goes on and advances. The backgammon player could obtain an
advantage by being able to hit the blot of the opponent from the point being held, or by
rolling doubles which are large and allows a player to advance the checkers and then a
running game may commence.

A priming game is described by building checkers like a wall which is termed as a

prime, which ideally covers six points consecutively. The priming game usually obstructs
the checkers which are positioned opposing and behind the players’ blockade. A prime is
often built between the 2-point and the 11-point, and then it will be shuffled into the
home board as the game goes on.

The blitz is described as a strategy with the home board quickly closing as possible while
the opponent is being kept on the bar because the opponent will find it difficult to enter
the bar again or escape again, the player could quickly obtain the running advantage and
possible win.

The backgame is the strategy of positioning two or more anchors in the home boad of
the opponent while building the prime in the player’s own home board. The anchors
would obstruct the checkers of the opponents and would make opportunities of hitting
them as they are moved towards the home board.

Duplication is the placement of the checkers in a way that the dice rolls will be to the
advantage of the opponent. The opponent may desire on a number of moves he wishes
but this strategy reduces the chance of getting the blot hit.

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Backgammon as a Social and Competitive play
Many Backgammon enthusiasts have formed clubs for playing Backgammon socially.
Some local clubs could hold some informal gatherings including members sometimes
meeting at cafes or bars in the evenings to play the game as well as socialize with each
other engaging in conversations and the pleasure of playing. There are a few clubs that
offer the traditional services as well. The clubs are maintained with their own facilities
and most of the clubs nowadays offer their analysis made by the computer when
encountering plays deemed troublesome. Some of the club leaders have seen a growth for
the game of backgammon recently and most of them attribute this to the popularity of
playing the game on the internet.

The backgammon chouette allows three Backgammon players or more to participate in

one game usually with money at stake. A player competes against a certain team with all
of the other players, and there is a rotation of positions after every game. The chouette
game often allows making use of doubling cubes in multiples.

There are also organized tournaments for Backgammon. Backgammon clubs usually does
the organization of such tournaments. There are large club tournaments which usually
draw many competitors from other places or regions, with the final games or matches
being viewed by many fans of the game or spectators. Top players of the tournaments
held in the regions often see competition for major international or national stakes such as
international championships for Backgammon. The winners at these tournaments may get
tens of thousands of dollars. One example of the tournament is the PartyGaming , where
they announced a stake of US$1,000,000 held last 2006 in Bahamas.

International competition

Before 1979, there was not one world championship catering for Backgammon players,
although there were several tournaments major tournaments at that held in Bahamas and
Las Vegas, but since then the Backgammon championship held in Monte Carlo has been
widely accepted as the top international championship or the top international
tournament. It is now acknowledged as the World Backgammon Championship games
being held in Monte Carlo. Players and spectators come in thousands and play in a series
of weeks. Currently, the major tournaments for Backgammon are held every year in Rio
de Janeiro, Dallas, St. Tropez and Venice.

Gambling

Gambling in Backgammon or playing for money is done by assigning a value to each

match or game and to play with a determined score aimed at being reached first. The
game is stopped if a player decides to stop. The monetary value or the stakes usually rise
by the gammons, backgammons, and of course using the doubling cube.

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 Modern Backgammon

There have been many studies on Backgammon by computer scientists. The studies on
networks called Neural networks and the other approaches by the scientists have indeed
provided some of the important advances to the Backgammon software both for
analyzing troublesome games and in playing the game or matches as well.

The very primary Backgammon opponent which is created as a computer program was
the BKG 9.8. Hans Berliner wrote it in 70’s based on a DEC PDP-10 primarily aimed to
be a guinea pig for evaluating the positions of the checkers on the board. There were
earlier versions of the BKG but they were badly played even when playing against poor
Backgammon players. Berliner took note of the critical errors. He concluded that the
critical errors were at the changing of the phases constantly. He proceeded to apply the
fuzzy logic which are applied principles focused in smoothing out the transition of one
phase to another and then by July 1979, the BKG 9.8 was concluded to be as strong
enough to compete against the ruling world champion then, Mr. Luigi Villa. It won over
Villa with the score 7-1, and it became the first computer generated program to defeat
the world champion in any type of game. Berliner reiterated that the win of the BKG 9.8
was also a matter or stroke of luck, as the BKG 9.8 computer got more favorable rolls of
the dice.

The late eighties saw the creation of many software for Backgammon which obtained
success began to have success initially in using the neural networks approach as the basis.
Gerald Tesauro from IBM created the TD-Gammon. TD-Gammon was among the first
programs to play the level for experts in Backgammon. The nueral network of the TD-
Gammon was developed by making use of the temporal difference learning
application, which was applied to the data and according to the first assessments by Kit
Woosley and Bill Robertie the TD-Gammon could play even above the human level of
the Backgammon players of the world.

The researches for computer generated programs for Backgammon also paved thw way
for two of the modern commercial programs for Backgammon, named; Snowie and
Jellyfish. There are other programs implemented with Java like the BGBlitz which is a
shareware. There is also free software being offered widely known as the GNU
Backgammon. This software offers the necessary tools for the players’ convenience in
game analysis. They offer the details for comparing the moves.

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 Playing Backgammon in the Internet

Backgammon software has been developed not only to play and analyze games, but also
to facilitate play between humans from different parts of the world over the internet. Dice
rolls are provided by random or pseudorandom number generators. Real-time on-line
play began with the First Internet Backgammon Server on July 19, 1992.[35] The server is
the longest running non-commercial backgammon server and enjoys a strong
international community of backgammon players. Several commercial websites also offer
on-line real-time backgammon play. Yahoo! Games has offered a Java-based online
backgammon game since 1997. MSN Games currently offers a backgammon game based
on ActiveX.

Online gambling providers, including PartyGaming, began to expand their offerings to

include backgammon in 2006.[36] With the passage of the SAFE Port Act in the United
States in October 2006, online backgammon for money stakes is considered a game of
luck, subject to the act's restrictions on money transfers.[citation needed] In January 2007, a
similar law was passed in Israel, prohibiting online money play in the state.[citation needed]