Russian Backgammon?

joliver · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 25

I grew up in England, as did both of my parents. However, my grandparents on both sides are from Russia. I have recently been trying to get a little more involved in my Russian roots. I love to play backgammon as well so I wondered if there was a Russian variation of the game that I could start playing.

Checker · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 10

Actually there is a Russian backgammon game. It is played with a backgammon board as well as with fifteen backgammon checkers for each opponent. However, the game is quite a bit different from traditional backgammon that is popular in England and you are probably familiar with.

In Russian backgammon both players begin with their checkers off of the board and they enter through the same quarter of the board and exit through the same quarter of the board in a race to see who can bear off all of their checkers the fastest.

In order to begin the game both players roll one die to see who will go first and the player who rolls the highest number may choose to play the resulting numbers or to roll again. You enter your checkers based on the numbers you roll. Some people play the game so that you have to enter all of your checkers before you can start moving forward while some say that you can start moving forward as soon as you have entered one or two checkers. Personally I think that it is more fun and challenging to wait until all of your checkers are entered.

Once you have moved all of your checkers around the board into the finishing table you may begin bearing them off.

The rules of hitting also apply in Russian Backgammon. Landing on a blot, or single opposing checker on a point, will send this checker to the bar where they must re-enter it into the game before they do anything else. Because both players are moving in the same direction at about the same speed there is a lot of hitting going on, especially in the finishing table during bear off! This can make for either a really exciting or really frustrating game, depending on what side of the table you’re on!

The final big difference between traditional and Russian backgammon is how you treat doubles. In Russian backgammon when you roll doubles you may play them twice as in traditional backgammon. However, you may ALSO play the compliment of your double roll, which means the numbers on the reverse side of the dice (which have landed face down on the table). Every number on the dice equals seven when added to its compliment. Therefore if you roll a double five you may play four fives as well as four twos because two is the compliment of five. After you make your move you can roll the dice again and make that play as well. Doubles can help you win big in Russian backgammon.