Backgammon is a game for two players, played on a board consisting of 24 narrow triangles called points. The triangles alternate in color and are grouped into two, which have twelve triangles each. The halves are formed by the two opposing sides of the board. The board has a vertical band down the middle called the 'bar', where the checkers are placed when hit.

The left-hand side of the board closest to each player is known as their outer board, while the right-hand side is called the home board.

The points are numbered from one to 24, with checkers always moving from high to low numbers. As the players move their checkers in opposite directions, the one point for one player will be the 24 point for the other.

Each player has 15 checkers. These begin the game with two positioned on the 24 point, five on the 13 point, three on the 8 point, and five on the 6 point in their home board.

A pair of dice determines the number of moves available to the players, and a doubling cube with numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 on its faces is used to keep track of the stakes currently being played for.

Timers

The game is governed by two timers.

The local timer counts down 45 seconds in normal speed games, 30 seconds in fast games, 15 seconds in express games, in which time the player must make a move. This is reset after each move and, if it expires, the global timer starts ticking.

The global timer is set to three minutes in normal speed games, 2 minutes in fast games, 1 minute in express games, and only starts ticking when the local timer expires. This global timer governs the entire game

For example, in the case of a game at normal speed, if the player neither moves any checkers nor makes any transactions during the 45 seconds of the local timer, the global timer will start. If the global timer runs out, the player in control of the board will be declared the loser, and points will be awarded to his opponent according to the doubling cube. This will be counted as losing the game, regardless of the current state of the game board.

The object of the game

The aim of backgammon is to be the first player to move all your checkers into your home board and then off the table.