Bearing off in Backgammon is a Crucial stage of the Game

admin · Site Admin Joined: 15 May 2007 Posts: 862

The object of the backgammon board game is to be the first player to succeed in bringing all their checkers into their home area of the board from where they can remove them from the board. Removing checkers from the board is known as bearing off in backgammon, and it is represents the finale stage - a most crucial stage of the backgammon game.

In the course of bearing off in backgammon, players need to disengage from the struggle with their opponent, and put all their efforts into bringing their checkers into their home area. This process involves both moving single checkers, and dismantling multiple checkers piled on points to form primes, or "stripping a point" in backgammon parlance. This can be a tricky operation since the idea is to be able to remove checkers without leaving a single checker exposed. A single checker left on a point can be hit by the opponent's checker and sent to bar and the owner of the checker is compelled to start again the whole bearing off in backgammon process for any checkers sent to the bar.

Just like all the other moves in the game, bearing off in backgammon proceeds according to the dice throws obtained. The appropriate throws are needed to bring each checker into the home area and hence to bear them off or remove them from the board. Bearing off calculations are significant in backgammon gaming, for example, a backgammon computer creates a bearoff database that measures the value of each bearoff position.