Gammons vs. Backgammons for the Game of Backgammon

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Grady Johnson and I am a competition backgammon player and today I am representing expertvillage.com. Now I would like to talk a little bit about another crucial element of the game in competition and that is gammons and backgammons and when you are just playing it for fun, it is fun to win with a gammon or a backgammon but there is nothing quite like in competition because then it does raise the stakes a bit. Now we have gotten to the end and we are going to move our stones off. When we get the last two off we notice something and unusual has happened. Our opponent has not been able to get even one stone off, now when this occurs the game is no longer worth one point because we have now effectively created a gammon. And now what a gammon means is that I got all of my stones all the way off the board and they are completely born off and they have not been able to even bear off one. Now a gammon means that you got everything out of there before he was able to get his off. That means that you are actually going to get twice the points. So say we were just playing a one point game we never got into the doubling cube at all. Then that would mean that that one point game would count for two. Now if we have the doubling cube going and say we are up to a two already here or even a four, it would double that, so the four would then be an eight. Now sometimes when you’re in a betting round with the doubling cube whether that is for points or for money, you can effectively see that you are about to achieve a gammon that may be an opportunity where you want to do that double right away. Your opponent may just fall when he thinks he is going to have a gammon and a double at the same time. Now when you are playing the game if you are able to leave a person back leave him up on the bar, that is called a backgammon and that is the name of the game and this is the ultimate in this game. That means you are able to bear off all of your stones before they could bear off one of their stones and you even left one of their stones up on the bar. This does count triple. That is a three to one victory for you that is when the doubling cube can get extremely interesting. Two would be a six, four a 12; I mean do the math that could add up to a lot of points, well lot of money if you are playing a money game. Now that is what you have when you have a gammon and that is what you have when you have a backgammon."