Backgammon Rule Clarification

Tommo · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 14

The other day I was playing backgammon with a friend. At the end of the game, I had already started bearing off and was sure I was going to win because my opponent still had a couple of checkers on the bar. But then I had a roll that forced me to leave one of my checkers exposed. On my opponent’s next roll, she was able to enter both of her checkers, it my exposed checker and knock me back to the bar where I was stuck because she had built a prime in her home board. She then proceeded to roll two double sixes in a row and I was only able to get my checker off the bar and back into the game as she was bearing off her final two checkers.

Of course I was disheartened, but I was even more so when my opponent suggested that she should receive a three point backgammon because I still had a checker in her home board! I disagreed on the premise that I had already started bearing off checkers, but she stood by her argument, saying that the rule was that if you won the game when your opponent still had a checker in your home board.

Can someone please clarify?

Quadrant · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 20

Ah, it does hurt to lose like that.
Anyways, to answer your question—if you have a piece borne off it just counts as a normal loss of one point. No matter where you may still have checkers on the board it is not a backgammon, it is not a gammon, it is a normal one point loss.