Rolling the Dice for Backgammon

Series Summary

Backgammon, a classic game for two players, is won by rolling dice in order to remove playing pieces from the game board. Luck of the dice plays a large role in winning the race to remove game pieces. Much like checkers or chess, there are tournaments worldwide. Similar games date back to 3000 BC and ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest use of the English word “backgammon” used to describe the game of luck, dates back to 1650.

The first step to learning how to play the game of backgammon is setting up the board correctly. Starting with this step, our expert explains different strategies and moves that can be made during the play of the game. There is a certain vocabulary that backgammon players have identified with different strategies and moves. Learn how to “get off the roof” or “doubling cube.” Get tips on the opening roll and the last quadrant. Learn about hitting and safety and the difference between gammoned and backgammoned. Get expert playing advice on how to re-enter the board and the first and second sequences. In this series of videos, our expert explains the details of backgammon strategy and rolling the dice to win the game.

Video Transcript

"My name is Malcolm Davis, I’m a professional Backgammon player. I’m here for expertvillage.com and teach you basically how to play. Right now we have the board set up, we will show you the dice, there’s four dice usually here are the dice cups. In the United States, it’s almost always essential to have dice cups because the hands don’t necessarily make the dice roll out and give you a random roll. It’s a totally accepted custom to always roll on the right side of the board. In this case, my opponent would be sitting over here, and I would roll on this side of the board. The game is likely at least 5,000 years old and certainly a documented at least 3,000 years old, it’s become much more interesting since the 1920s when this little element here, the doubling cube, was introduced to the game. It’s something we can discuss later, it’s a great, great innovation to backgammon and to most games actually. "