Many people approach a backgammon board and become intimidated by its setup.  If you’ve been considering trying out backgammon but have had this feeling, you’ll be happy to know decoding the backgammon board is a very simple task.

First off, let’s understand the object.  Backgammon is a two player board game where players each have a set number of checkers which they race to get around and off of the board first.  When you look at a backgammon board, you’ll see it is divided into 4 sections with a bar halving the board, creating two halves with 2 sections in each half.  The bar is simply a place for holding checkers that have been hit and for placing the doubling die.  It does not affect the movement of checkers around the board.

You and your opponent will start from the same side of the board but opposite sections.  Each section of the backgammon board has 12 long triangles which are called points.  These points are the spaces your checkers will move on.  Don’t worry about the different colors of the points, this has no affect.  You can land on any point that is open to land on.  You and your opponent will simply line up your checkers at the starting section according to the rules (they will tell you how many checkers go on each point of your section before the game starts).  From there you simply roll the dice and choose where to move your checkers on the backgammon board in order to win.  You and your opponent will race opposite directions around the board.  The backgammon board is simply that easy to understand.