Bar Point Backgammon
Training Site
Setting up the board…
Training Site
No sign-up needed. You play Robbie, a robot, and can make an account afterwards.
Setting up the board…
Sign in to this app
Thank you for joining us as a beta tester. This is an early release, and you’re one of the first people to play it. We’re building a home for a backgammon community, and a place where poker players can bring their skills to a game people have loved for about 5,000 years.
Two quick questions will help us set things up for you.
There’s no wrong answer. Many of our players learned at a parent’s or grandparent’s table and haven’t played in years. This app was built with you in mind.
Would you like a two-minute refresher before you play? It covers the race, moving, points and blocks, hitting, bearing off, gammons and the doubling cube.
Each side has 15 checkers. Move all of yours around the board into your home board, then take them off. That’s called bearing off. The first to bear off all 15 wins. Your checkers only ever move forward, the opposite way to your opponent’s.
Roll two dice. Move one checker by each number, or one checker by both, one number after the other. A double, like 4-4, means you move that number four times. You must use both numbers if you can; drag a checker and the board shows where it may go.
You can’t land on a point holding two or more of your opponent’s checkers. Two or more of your own make a point safe, and a row of them is a wall your opponent can’t get past.
A checker alone on a point is a blot. If your opponent lands on one of yours, it’s hit: it goes to the bar in the middle and must come back in at the start, in your opponent’s home board, before you can move anything else. A hit costs that checker all the ground it had covered. That’s how a race gets turned around.
When all 15 are home, each number you roll takes a checker off that point: a 5 from your 5-point. If that point is empty, move a checker down from a higher point; if there is none higher, take one off from the highest point you have.
A win scores 1 point. If your opponent hasn’t borne off a single checker, it’s a gammon, worth 2. If they also still have a checker on the bar or in your home board, it’s a backgammon, worth 3. Before rolling, either player can double the game’s value. The other takes, playing on for twice as much, or passes, giving up the game at its current value.
One line of strategy: the pip count shows how far each side still has to go. Ahead in the race, get home safely. Behind, hold your points and wait for a shot.
Good news: your poker skills transfer. You already think in expected value and pot odds, and backgammon’s doubling cube runs on the same math. When you’re doubled, taking is right if you’ll win about one game in four, just like calling with the right price. What’s new is moving the checkers well, and that’s what our coaching teaches. We’ll explain moves in poker terms whenever it helps.
No problem. Backgammon rewards the same clear thinking about risk and reward, and our coach explains everything in plain terms.
Other players see it beside your name. Pick one of ours, or use a photo of yourself.
Help is one tap away:
These coaching tools work in every game, including games against other players.
The Community section has two rooms. Theory & problems is where you post positions from your games, ask how to play them, and try other players’ puzzles. App suggestions is where you tell us what’s working, what isn’t, and what you’d like next. As a beta tester, your suggestions shape what we build.
Thanks for being here. Now let’s play.
You’re playing as a guest. Create your free account to keep your games, ask the coach why a move is best, and play other people.
You signed in without a password.
New board: Club Felt. You can change it in Settings, under Board.
Waiting on you
Watch a game
Chouettes
Competition mode
A game between people with no help for either side: no hints, no cube advice, no coach and no Whoops. Results count apart from practice games. Either player can turn it on or off between games, under Table rules.
Your chances to win
Turn your iPhone sideways for a larger board.
This post
Evaluate position
Cube analysis
More
Session results
Table rules
No hints, no cube advice, no coach and no Whoops, for either player; results counted apart.
Robots play for points only.
Play backgammon
Who would you like to play?
Friends online
Robots always ready
Recently here
Challenge someoneThey’ll see your challenge as soon as they open the game.
Invite
Chouette rules
Tables of up to five. The box plays alone, without a partner. The rules apply from the next game.
Messages
Send a greeting or gift
This note
A report sends the note and both names to the person who runs the game. Muted, they can’t invite you or send you notes; nobody is told.
Your settings
In every game, against people and robots.
The coach’s Why? follows it too: plain words without numbers, the usual, or a full technical answer.
When a comparison with poker makes the idea clearer.
After a move or cube decision that gives up 0.25 of a point or more (half that for Mistakes too), a “Whoops” shows what it cost, with Show me for what was best. At a robot’s table you can take the move back.
Off, a Whoops shows only at a robot’s table.
After a move that was the best play, or just as good, a word on the board says so, and your seat counts them. Off in competition mode.
When you can’t double (your opponent owns the cube, or in a match the Crawford game or a dead cube), and for your opening die, your dice are rolled for you. When a roll can be played only one way, or not at all, it is played for you and your turn ends by itself. When you are on the bar against a closed board and can’t double, your turn passes without a roll. You can still resign from More at any time.
Bearing off, when each die takes a checker off its own point, or off your highest point when the die is higher, the checkers come off by themselves.
Sending at once saves a tap, but you can’t take a checker back after the last one lands.
How often each roll has come up for you and your opponents, against what fair dice would give. It counts from the first time you open it.
Board Deep Space
Just for this device: your opponent keeps their own colors.
On this screen only: your opponent sees the board as before, and the scores and records don’t change.
Signed in as
Your password is changed. Sign out your other phones and computers too? Do this if one was lost, or if someone else may know your old password.
What’s newEach link is for one new player: it works once, for 7 days. Send it by text message, so it opens in Safari or Chrome.
The first time a player taps Sign in with Google, they get the account whose address here is their Google account’s. Without one they would start a new account. A player can also connect Google themselves, in their settings.
A problem from the community board, the same for everyone each day, under the players on the list of tables.
Every player, you too, sees the five screens at their next opening, until they go through them again. Their answers so far are kept until they answer again.
One extra question to the analysis after each move or cube decision a player makes, behind the hints in its queue. Off, nothing is judged or saved.
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Your picture
Other players see it beside your name. Pick one of ours, or use a photo of yourself.
Fair dice odometer
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The trip starts again from zero. The whole count keeps going.
Your own rolls, and your opponents’, in every game, against people and robots. Opening rolls, one die from each player, are not counted.
Add Backgammon to your Home Screen
It then opens like an app: full screen, and signed in.
Backgammon
On your Home Screen, tap Backgammon.Backgammon
On your Home Screen, tap Backgammon.No Share button? This page may be open inside another app: open it in Safari or Chrome first.
Sign out everywhere?
This signs you out on all your phones and computers, this one too. Use it if a phone is lost or someone else may know your password.