Thanks to advancements in technology these days, several games that people have enjoyed playing throughout time have found themselves ported over to the online world. Backgammon is not an exception; it is but one of the timeless games for which online versions have been created.

If you have not encountered backgammon before, now is the time for you to try and take a shot at this exciting strategy board game. You don’t even have to purchase a backgammon board because the online game will have it ready for you. There’s no shortage of opponents even, because there are enthusiasts who are always online and who’d be happy to indulge you.

If you’ve played Poker, then you’ll find that backgammon is, more or less, a similar experience. However, the rules are different and the strategy needed will require a bit more thinking from you as the player. If you’re fond of exercising that big muscle on your head, then this game is definitely for you.

The goals in playing backgammon are simple – you need to place all of your checkers, or as many as possible, in the board. After you’ve placed all of them in the board, the next goal is to slowly regain them back until the board is devoid of your checkers. You have to do this before your opponent beats you to it. There are two courts in the backgammon board – your opponent’s, and your home board. You start moving from your opponent’s court towards your own.

The roll of the dice is central to everything that you do in online backgammon. At the start of the game, you and your opponent will roll a die to determine who will move first. The player who rolls the higher number will move first.

Here’s the gameplay in a nutshell: using a dice tumbler, you roll a pair of six-sided dice to determine what your next move will be. Each die corresponds to a checker, so you can move one checker according to the number brought up by each die. So, if you get a 6, and 4, one checker can be moved six or four spaces with the other checker taking up the other number.

Where to move your checkers? In backgammon, it’s highly recommended that you move to an open point as much possible. Open points are defined as points that are not occupied by two checkers or more. So, continuing from the example above, move one checker a distance of six open points and 4 open points for the other.

Whatever you do, make it a point to have two or more of your checkers occupying a point: never leave a checker alone on a point as this can mean an opportunity for your opponent to block that checker with his own. In backgammon parlance, this is called a “blot.” Having your checkers caught in blots could affect your strategy as you’ll have to “hit” them by placing a checker on them. This is necessary in order to be able to move that blotted checker.

Once all of your checkers have been moved to your home court, it’s time to bear them off. Bearing off means moving them away, still keeping up with the roll of the dice. When you’ve moved all your checkers to your tray, the game is over and you’ve won the game.