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How to Play Backgammon, Rules and Strategy

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  Game Play The game begins with each player rolling one die. The player with the higher number rolled gets to use both dice for the first move. Each dice is moved separately and can be moved forward to any point that is not blocked. When your opponent has two or more checkers on a point, that point is blocked. If the point has your own checkers, no checkers, or only one opponent checker, the point is open. When both dice are rolled with the same number, the player will move double. For example, if double threes are rolled, the player will move three points four times. When a player moves a checker onto a point that only has one opponent checker, the opponent’s checker is placed on the middle bar. Any checker on the middle bar has to be returned into play before making any other moves. A checker returns to the board on your farthest point. (i.e., the 24th point). Rules Backgammon is not controlled by a dominating authority, yet the "rules of play" are agreed on by the interna...

Origin of Backgammon

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  Backgammon  is one of the oldest games in existence, alongside Go and Chess. It is probably about 5,000 years old and may well have originated in what today is Iraq — previously Mesopotamia. Recent evidence supporting this was found when these very early dice (made of human bones) were discovered in the area. The board with its twenty-four points and thirty checkers (or pieces or men) has been around for a long time but the game has not always been called backgammon. Other games which used the same board were Senet and Mancala. The Romans were the first to make it truly popular with their version called “Duodecum Scripta et Tabulae” or “Tables” for short. The word backgammon first appeared in print in 1645. No one knows for sure where the name came from, but most scholars agree that in all likelihood it comes from the Middle English baec = back and gamen = game. Backgammon appears consistently in art throughout the second millennium, most famously in “The Garden of Earthly D...