Scoring a gammon

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

Scoring a gammon occurs when a player succeeds in removing all their checkers from the board, or bearing off, while the opposing player has not managed to even remove a single checker from the backgammon board. The winner of the gammon is considered as if they have two wins, and they are entitled to get twice the value of the doubling cube. If in addition to having failed to bear off any of their checkers, if the losing player still has one checker left in the inner area of their opponent's board, the winner of the game is considered to have made a triple win, or a backgammon.

The gaming significance of scoring a gammon is indicated by the efforts backgammon players put into calculating the probabilities of this victory occurring. The possibility of scoring a gammon enhances the equity, or value of a player's position. Players calculate the gammon rate, or the probability of the game ending in scoring a gammon.

There is also what is known as the Gammon Price in backgammon. Gammon price is a formula that compares the value of a single victory against the double victory of the gammon. Another common calculation relevant to backgammon gaming is called the Gammon Count. This number indicates the smallest amount of points a player needs to be able to bring all their checkers into their home area, and bear off the first of their checkers and thereby avoid being defeated through a gammon.