Backgammon

An early Renaissance English game. Described here are the rules as laid out by Francis Willughby.

Number of Players

The game is played with two players.

Set Up

• Standard tables board
• 15 “men” of one color, typically black
• 15 “men” of another color, typically white
• 2 six-sided dice per player
• 1 cup per player

Players determine who goes first using any sort of method. The “black” player places 5 men on points 6 and 13, 3 men on point 8, and 2 men on point 24. The “white” player places 5 men on points 10 and 12, 3 men on point 17, and 2 men on point 1.

Here is the starting layout:

Game Play

The “black” player will move men to their home table, which are points 1 (their home point) through 6, and the “white” player will move men to their home table, which are points 19 through 24 (their home point). The men are moved by the current player rolling their dice in their cup and rolling them out onto the table. Each die represents movement of one man or both dice totaled represent the movement of a single man, pausing on the divider between each panel of the board.

There are a number of ways players can move. First, they may move to any point that has no men on it or points that they currently occupy. They may move to a spot with one opposing man and may “hit” a “blot”. Blots are points with just a single man. When hit, a man is removed from the board and must re-enter upon the roll of a dice. No other man may move in the meantime.

At any time, movement may be “blocked” if any point has 2 or more opposing men occupying it. When this happens, movement for that man stops. If a man rolls an “ace” and is blocked on the home point, they may not move.

A move is not final until the player’s dice are removed from the board. Until then, a move may be undone.

Binding Up the Tables

There is a situation where the opposing player has 2 men on all their home table points and a player has men that were hit. In this situation, a player may not have men be able to re-enter the table. Instead, players roll dice and whichever player gets the highest determines which point is broken up. When a point is broken up, the men at that point are considered for all intents and purposes hit and must re-enter the table accordingly.

Doubling Cube

Optionally, a doubling cube may be used. The faces on it are 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64. When used, it is placed with the number 64 and on the center of the board. This is called “centered on 1”. A player may propose to double the score. The opposing player may “take” it or “drop” the game, losing the game in the same fashion as described below. If the opposing player takes it and the cube is “centered on 1”, move the die to the 2 face. Every time a player proposes doubling and it is taken, the die is moved up to the next higher face. The effect of the doubling die is that it will double the final score received by the winning player.

Winning the Game

The player who, first, moves all their men on their respective home table and then “bears” them off the table, wins. To “bear off”, a player must get the exact number of moves to reach the side of the board. Outright winning the game this way is called “game” and grants the winning player 1 score. If the opposing player does not have a man that has borne off, this is called “gammon” and is worth 2 scores. If the opposing player has not yet removed any men from the board and the bar is empty and the winning player’s home table is empty, this is called a “backgammon” and worth 3 scores.

House Rule: Doubling Dice

One particular house rule is that you add one result in the case of doubles on the dice. For example, rolling two 1s, it’s now three 1s.