Backgammon is really a simple racing game at the base using a board and a pair of six-sided dice. The board is divided into quarters, each of which has six triangles (aka ‘points’) and the men are moved from point to point according to the dice rolls.
At the start the pieces are arranged in a set pattern on certain points, mirroring each other. The players then race (in opposite directions, i.e. clockwise vs. counterclockwise) to get all their pieces (“Men”) from their starting locations around to their designated Home quadrant. Once all of a player’s men are in his home quadrant, then he starts ‘bearing them off’ – removing them from the board. The first player to get all his men off wins.
As to the actual moving: you move a man for each of the numbers you roll. As in, if you roll a three and a four, then you can move one man three points and one man four points. Or move a single man for both numbers, if you choose. If you roll doubles, you get to move twice for each number. So if you rolled double fives, you could move four men for five points each, or one man for five points and another for 15 points, or two men ten points each, or any combo like that.
The key complication is that you MUST be able to land your man at the end of each move on a “legal” point. Which points are ‘illegal’? The points that your opponent has two or men already occupying. So consider that double five. Maybe you’d like to move the two men on a particular point ten points each…except your opponent has two men sitting on the point five away. Since you cannot legally land on that point, you are unable to move the ten points ever though the point ten points away IS legal.
If there is no legal move available for a number you rolled, you’re out of luck. (You do move the other die’s number, assuming there is a legal move for that number.)
During the bearing off phase, you can remove a man from the point number you rolled OR move a man from one point to another that number away (as in, from the four point to the one point after rolling a three) OR if you don’t have any man on that point or a higher one you can take off a man from the highest available point. Like, you have a five to play, and no men on five to remove, and no man on six you can move down five spaces, then you can remove a man from point four. Or whichever point is the highest you have a man on.
Having a single man on a point is called a ‘blot’ and is dangerous. The other player can still land on that point (it takes two or more men to own a point) and if they do, your man is knocked off the board. Then he has to be reentered in the quadrant the furthest from your home quadrant, meaning a lot more distance to be covered. As you probably predict, the reentry is controlled by your dice roll. Your man comes out onto one of the points you roll and then you move the other number rolled as usual. If you are really unlucky your man won’t be able to come out – you roll a four and a six, but your opponent has two or men on both of those point already, then you lose out that turn completely.
So then the common strategy is to try to make points (get two men on the same point) to deny that point to the other player. If you can’t make a point, try to leave blots (single men) on the points that are most likely to help you gain a useful point in the future, Or maybe leave a blot on the point the opponent is least likely to be able to hit. Or just that will hurt you least if he does hit it. As in, if the opponent hits a blot you’re already gotten most of the way around the track, having to reenter that man all the way back at the start is a major setback.
That’s the basics if you’re just playing for fun.
However, then there’s the doubling die. Another six sided die, but this one is labeled 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64. See, backgammon is mainly played by adults as a gambling game. Suppose you start by agreeing the winner gets one dollar. (Or a nickel, or hundred bucks. Whatever.) Then at some point in the game, you feel you’ve been lucky with your rolls, you turn the die to the 2. Your opponent has to either agree to now play the game for twice the original stakes, two dollars in my example, or else concede and pay the dollar you.
He then gets control of the doubling die. If later on the rolls move the other player to think he now has the better chance, he can turn the die to 4, which you will then have to agree to bet four dollars or forfeit the game and two dollars. And so on, and so on. Yep, can get pricey.
Have fun!
(and then steps off board, from where it has to come back on)