The Rules of Bearing off in the Backgammon Game

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

The objective of backgammon is to be the first player to complete bearing off in the bearing game. Bearing off refers to the act of removing your checkers from your home board. If you manage to bear off all your checkers first, you are the winner of the game and thus of any stakes of the game as well. There are certain rules relating to bearing off in the backgammon game.

First of all, you cannot start bearing off in the backgammon game until all your checkers are in your home (inner) board. Even if you have only one checker left on the bar or elsewhere on the board, you cannot start bearing off. If you throw a one, you can bear off a checker from your point one. If you throw a two, you bear off from point two, and so forth. Remember that you do not have to start (or continue) bearing off in the backgammon game. You can move checkers around within your home board, especially if it means creating two checkers on a point that was vulnerable to attack with a single checker.

What happens when you throw a number that is higher than the highest point on your home board? The rules of most backgammon versions state that you can bear off from your next highest point. You will be forced to stop bearing off in the backgammon game if one of your checkers is captured and sent to the bar. The process can only recommence once you have managed to bring that checker back to your home board.