Unlike online poker and many other online casino games, backgammon is one of the simplest games to understand and once players have mastered the basic principles, they can turn their attention to developing their own strategies and improving their rankings.

Backgammon is played between two people across a board with a specific design that is divided into four quadrants. Each player has fifteen checkers of which he or she has to dispose by moving the checkers across the board in a certain direction and eventually off the board. The checkers are initially placed in a set pattern on several of the 24 triangles on the backgammon board, called points. Each player has two dice which they take turns in throwing. Some versions of backgammon also use a doubling cube.

The player to start the game is the one who throws the highest number on one die. Players then proceed to move their counters according to the numbers thrown with two dice – either as one entity of the amount or as two separate numbers. Checkers need to land on points that either unoccupied or occupied by players’ own checkers. If players land on a point occupied by the opponent’s single checker, the ‘hit’ checker is send to the bar (raised ridge in the middle of the board) and the opponent needs to move that checker off the bar and back onto the backgammon board.

Players need to aim to bring all their checkers to their home board and then start bearing them off (ie. removing them from the board). The player who manages to bear off all his or her checkers first is the winner of the game of backgammon.