Backgammon is one of the oldest board games in the world. The game consists of a board that is divided up into 4 areas: the white home board, the white outer board, the black outer board and the black home board. Each of the sections consists of 6 triangles.
Two players play the game against one another, taking turns to roll 2 six-sided dice. Each player has 15 stones, either black or white. The aim of the game is for the players to move their pieces in accordance with the result of the dice roll into their respective home boards. A stone cannot be moved to a space already occupied by more than one stone belonging to the opponent. You can, however, move a stone onto a space occupied by a single stone belonging to the opponent. Doing this leads to your opponent’s stone being moved to the bar (the centre of the board). The opponent must bring this stone back into play before he/she can move any other stones.
Once all of your stones are in your home board, you can start to remove them from play – this is called ‘bearing off’. The first player to bear off all of his/her stones wins the game.
