Backgammon for beginners – where to start

admin · Site Admin Joined: 15 May 2007 Posts: 860

If you're new to backgammon, there are plenty of resources geared to backgammon for beginners, to help you learn the game and progress quickly. To get the feel of the game, it's a good idea to start playing live, but at the same time, you can gain invaluable lessons from many backgammon sites and programs.

First of all, you can read up online about the rules and how to set up the board. Backgammon is played between two players, each with fifteen checkers. The aim of the game is to move all your checkers round the board, into your home base, and finally count them off the board. Whoever gets there first is the winner. You move your checkers by rolling two dice simultaneously. There are some special moves, for example, if you throw a double, you have twice the number of moves (so on a double four, you can move your pieces four spaces, four times.)

Another important feature of backgammon for beginners is that if you leave any checker alone and undefended, it can be taken, or hit, by the other player, so it's a good idea to always keep your checkers in pairs.

A valuable resource for backgammon for beginners is the free software available on many websites, which follows your games, and points out where you went wrong and how to improve. Remember that practice makes perfect, and once you start learning the tricks of the trade, you can even begin to play for big money.