How to play Backgammon
The aim of the game is to move all your checkers into your own home
board and then bear them off. The white checkers move around the board
anti-clockwise, and the red checkers move around clockwise.
On your turn you must choose which checkers you wish to move. You move
the number of spaces indicated by the numbers you roll on the 2 dice.
You may use each die independantly, and move 2 different checkers,
or use both dice to move a single checker the total rolled.
If you roll a double you may use each die twice, so a roll of 5 and 5 means
you have a total of 20 points to use. You must use as much of your roll as
legally possible.
Checkers can only be moved to an 'open' point (an empty point, a point containing your own
checkers, or a point containing a single opponents checker). If you land on
an an opponents checker, then it is called a 'blot' and the opponent checker
is placed on the 'bar' (the strip inbetween the 2 halves of the game board)
If you have a checker on the bar you must enter it back onto the board
before you can make other moves. You can enter a checker onto any of the 6 open points
in your starting quarter of the board, only if you roll a number corresponding to that
point on your dice.
To win the game you must 'bear off' your checkers. You can only do this
once all your checkers have reached the final quarter of the board. The numbers on
the final quarter are numbered 1-6 and when you roll the dice, you may remove
one checker from each point which you have rolled the correct number for.
The game finishes when one player has successfully removed all their checkers
from the board.
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