Other Game Variations of Backgammon
It is hard to imagine anyone getting tired of backgammon, but if you want a change, your board can host many other games. We collected the variants below from books and from conversations with experienced players. There are surely many more, and new ones keep appearing.
Acey-deucy
Acey-deucy is an old American variant, long associated with the US Navy. Its rules are described in The Backgammon Book by Oswald Jacoby and John R. Crawford.
How it differs from backgammon
- No starting position. All fifteen checkers begin off the board. They enter in the opponent's home board, travel around through the outer boards and finish in your own home board, exactly the route a hit checker takes in backgammon.
- Free movement. You do not have to enter all your checkers before moving the ones already on the board. You may move any checker at any time.
- The acey-deucy roll. A roll of 1-2 is special. You play the 1 and the 2, then choose any double you like and play it as a double (four moves), and then roll again. If the new roll is 1-2 again, you get the same reward once more.
- A blocked 1-2. If you cannot play part of the sequence, for example because your opponent's points block the move, you lose the remainder of the turn, including the extra roll.
Bearing off begins, as in backgammon, once all your checkers have reached your home board.
Strategy
Early in the game, try to make advanced points quickly and, when the dice allow, join them into a prime. When both players have built primes, the side whose prime is further advanced usually has the edge: even if that player has to break first, he is still the favourite, and if he can hold the prime longer, he is very likely to win.
The 1-2 roll can turn a game around in a single turn, so it is worth arranging your checkers to make the opponent's 1-2 hard to play. Luck plays a larger part than in backgammon, the pace is quicker, and nobody is ever completely out of a game until it ends.
Dutch backgammon
In Dutch backgammon all checkers also start off the board and enter in the opponent's home board. Unlike acey-deucy, a player must bring all fifteen checkers onto the board before moving any of them further. In addition, no player may hit a blot until he has brought at least one checker all the way around to his own home board. After that, the usual backgammon rules apply.
Russian backgammon
In Russian backgammon both players again start with every checker off the board, but they enter in the same quarter of the board and travel around in the same direction. Doubles are especially powerful: in the common version, after playing a double, a player also plays the double on the opposite faces of the dice (for example, 2-2 followed by 5-5) and then rolls again. Local rules differ on details, such as whether the extra turn applies to the very first doubles, so agree on them before you start.
Hypergammon
Hypergammon keeps the normal rules but uses only three checkers per player. It is described with other short variants in more new backgammon variations.
Share your game
If you know another game that can be played on a backgammon board, we would be glad to hear about it. For pinning games such as tapa, and for nackgammon, see nackgammon, tapa and other backgammon games.