Rules of bearing off

Maddox · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 25

What do I do in the following situation: I’m bearing off and my opponent has an anchor in my home board on my one point, in front of all of my checkers. I roll a three but it’s blocked and I also roll a two, which I can play. I have one checker on the four point and two checkers on two. As I said, I can’t move the checker on the four-point to the one point because it’s blocked. Is it possible to move the checker from the four-point two spaces to the two-point and then to bear a checker off two? I am confused because I’ve heard that if you can’t move both checkers you must take the higher move. Please help!

Wipeout · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 19

First of all, the rule that if you can’t move both checkers you must make the play for the higher die of the two you rolled only applies in cases where you can CHOOSE which die to play but you can’t play both. It would be perfectly acceptable in this case for you to move 4-2 and then bear a checker off the 2-point. This would, however, not be acceptable if you had other checkers on points higher than two. You may only bear a checker off the highest occupied point if the dice roll is higher than the number of this point. Therefore, if you had any checkers remaining on the 3, 4 or 5-points you would not be able to make this move.