The rules of the den
How to play.
Five thousand years old and learnable in five minutes — that’s the whole trick of backgammon. Here is everything he needs to sit down at the board tonight.
The object.
Backgammon is a race. Each player has fifteen checkers moving in opposite directions around twenty-four points. Bring all fifteen home, then bear them off the board. First one done wins — and everything else in the game is just the two of you interfering with that simple plan.
The opening.
Every game of backgammon ever played has started exactly like this — 2, 5, 3 and 5, mirrored across the board.
The opening position — light moves toward the lower right, dark mirrors it
The play.
Roll two dice. Move one checker the total, or two checkers — one per die — always toward your home board. You may land anywhere your opponent doesn’t hold with two or more checkers. Roll doubles and you play the number four times, which is either a gift or a catastrophe, depending on the evening.
A lone checker is called a blot. Land on it and it goes to the bar in the middle of the board — its owner can do nothing else until it re-enters in your home board, against whatever defence you’ve built there. This is the moment the trash talk starts. It is traditional.
Bearing off.
Once all fifteen of your checkers reach your home board, the dice start removing them — a 5 bears a checker off the 5-point, and so on. First player with nothing left on the board wins. Lose before you’ve borne off a single checker and that’s a gammon — a double loss, and a story your opponent will retell for years.
The cube.
The doubling cube — invented in a New York club in the 1920s — is what turns a polite race into a game of nerve. Convinced you’re winning? Turn the cube and offer to double the stakes. Your opponent either accepts and owns the cube for the next double, or declines — and concedes the game on the spot. As the house rules say: doubling is a compliment. Declining is a confession.
Four tips before the first wager
Enough to be dangerous.
Make points, not sprints
Two checkers on a point own it. Six lone runners own nothing. Early on, safety beats speed almost every time.
Take the 5-point
The point next to your home anchor — players have called it the golden point for three hundred years. If the dice offer it, take it.
A blot within 6 is a promise
A lone checker one die-roll from an opponent will, eventually, get hit. Leave blots only where the maths forgives you.
Count the race
Ahead in the count? Run and avoid contact. Behind? Hold your anchor, keep the game complicated, and let the dice do the arguing.
One thing left
Now get a board worth playing on.
The rules are free. The quiet roll, the leather that ages with the room, and a name in the corner — those come in a numbered batch of fifty.
The Den Primer ships free with every board