Backgammon Variants: Play to Avoid Boredom and Extend Your Knowledge

There are many variants of backgammon that you may not be aware of. Learning how to play these games will provide you new concepts on how to strategic your games in the standard rule because these variants will show you different scenarios and possible attacks and counter-moves.

by: Jayel Roscoe
19 August 2009

Backgammon is a very interesting game, not only because of its nature but because it has several variants to choose from. This makes the game not boring at all, unlike many board games which you play by the same rules again and again. Standard backgammon rules may be changed and these changes in the rules are said to be geographical in origin. Since the game has existed since 3000 BC in several civilizations like Egypt and Mesopotamia, it is no wonder that backgammon has evolved into several other variant as well. Some backgammon rules are changed just for the fun part of it. some changes are due to tactical concerns.

In a backgammon variant, one will observe that the main difference is the opening position of the backgammon checkers. In some regions, even the movement of the backgammon checkers are changed. Once famous backgammon variant is called the Acey-Deucey. In this type of game, the players start without the presence of the checkers on the board. Each player will throw his dice and must bear the checkers on the board. This is quite the opposite of the standard backgammon because in the standard backgammon rules, you need to bear off your checkers.

Another famous variant is called the hypergammon. In this variant, you only have three checkers as a player and you will start these checkers at points 22, 23, and 24, respectively. Nackgammon is also a common variant, which was introduced by Nick “Nack” Ballard. Players of this game also start with three checkers. And these checkers are positioned in the mid point and sixth point of the backgammon board.

Russian backgammon, on the other hand, starts with no checkers on the board. The difference with the common backgammon is that the players move in the same direction, not the opposite direction. With this, both players will have to bear off their men on the same side of the backgammon board. Also, the Russian backgammon has a die with the number 7, not six, as opposed to the common die. Perhaps the most common variant is to have only five checkers of backgammon instead of the standard 15 checkers.