Author: Orad Reshef

Next lesson: Playing safe We have a few more brief topics to tackle before we take on how to improve your checker play. Here’s a list of FAQs about checker play, in no particular order. Forced moves If there is a possibility to play both numbers in a roll, they must both be played. A…

Playing a single game of backgammon is certainly fun, but it doesn’t last very long on its own, so typically an evening of backgammon will consist of a series of games. There’s different ways you can choose to score your game series, and you will need to adapt your strategy to match it. There are…

The doubling cube is typically ignored by beginner players. It’s that extra cube that comes in a backgammon set with numbers in powers of two (2, 4, 8… 64) on its faces: There are So. Many. Articles. about the doubling cube. Cube play is almost its own game within a game. Entire books are written…

If you’re just playing with your uncle who taught you, you’re probably playing for the immediate win. But sometimes one of you gets extra lucky and really beats the pulp out of the other. Shouldn’t that count for more? Enter Gammons, where a win is worth 2 points instead of 1. Gammon wins (also widely…

It will be hard to improve our checker play without being able to accurately describe specific positions or moves. So, before learning anything “fun,” we will learn some notation. Below is a photo of the starting position for a backgammon board: The triangles that mark where the checkers can sit are actually called points, and…