Long backgammon rules

The board and the starting position

The board has 24 points. Unlike the short game, they form one shared ring that both players travel in the same direction. Each player starts with all 15 checkers on a single starting point — the head. The two heads sit diagonally opposite: point 24 for White, point 12 for Black.

A player’s home board is the last six points of their route: points 1–6 for White, 13–18 for Black. Because the two routes are offset by half a ring, your head is the midpoint of your opponent’s distance, and theirs is the midpoint of yours.

The goal of the game

Move all 15 checkers a full lap to your home board and bear them off before your opponent does. There is no hitting: you can neither send an opponent’s checker back nor land on any point holding even one of their checkers. The whole fight is about speed — and about denying your opponent the points they want.

The opening roll

The right to move first is decided by a roll-off: each player rolls one die and the higher number starts; a tie is re-rolled. The winner of the roll-off then rolls both of their own dice again and plays the first turn of the game.

A turn

A turn is two dice. Each number is a separate move: one checker for the sum, or two different checkers for one number each. You may only land on empty points or points already occupied by your own checkers.

• You must play the maximum. If both numbers can be played, both must be played. Declining a legal move is not allowed.
• If only one of the two numbers can be played, play it — the other is lost. If either number can be played alone but not both together, you are obliged to play the larger one.
• If no legal move exists at all, the whole turn is skipped.

The head rule

Only one checker may leave the head per turn. The exception is your first turn of the game: on a roll of 3-3, 4-4 or 6-6 you may take two checkers off the head — otherwise the opening would be blocked by your own checkers.

Doubles

Equal numbers (4-4, say) are played four times instead of twice. The maximum rule applies here too: you must play as many of the four moves as are legally possible.

Blocking and the six-point prime

A point holding even one of your checkers is closed to your opponent. Several closed points in a row form a block; six in a row form a prime, which no single die can jump.

You may only complete a full six-point prime while at least one of your opponent’s checkers is still ahead of it — that is, further along their route toward bearing off. Sealing your opponent in completely, with all of their checkers behind the barrier, is not allowed.

Bearing off

You may start bearing off (removing checkers from the board) only once all 15 of your checkers are home. Home points are numbered 1–6 from the edge:

• A die bears off a checker from the point of the same number.
• If that point is empty and all higher points are empty too, the checker comes off the highest occupied point below the die.
• While higher points are still occupied you may not “overpay” with a die — play an ordinary move inside your home board instead.
• When a die allows both a bear-off and an internal move, the choice is yours.

Scoring a game

Long backgammon has no draws. When the winner bears off their fifteenth checker, the loser’s position sets the price of the win. The names are transliterated from the game’s own tradition rather than borrowed from the short game, because two of them mean something different here:

• Oin · ×1 — the opponent bore off at least one checker.
• Mars · ×2 — the opponent bore off nothing: they left their starting quarter but did not get all 15 checkers home. (Similar to a gammon in the short game.)
• Koks · ×3 — the opponent bore off nothing and still has checkers in the starting quarter of their route, head included.
• Home Mars · ×4 — the opponent got all 15 checkers home and still bore off none. The rarest result, and the most expensive.

Resigning, the clock and no-shows

Resigning or running out of time does not simply “cost 1 point” — the score is always computed from the final position on the same scale. Resign without having left your starting quarter and it is a koks; resign with all 15 home and none borne off and it is a Home Mars. That closes the “resign cheaply” loophole.

The only result with no position behind it is a walkover in scheduled games: if your opponent does not appear in the room within 10 minutes of the agreed time, the player who showed up takes the maximum — 4 points.