Backgammon Rules on Moving Your Checkers

Let's deal with the backgammon rules on moving your backgammon checkers. There are, of course other rules that you'd have to follow, but we'll only deal with backgammon rules that concern the movement of the checker pieces on the board. It will only take a few minutes to get a general idea of how things are done in backgammon but it may require several backgammon games before you really get a hang of these rules on moving your checkers.

To begin with, you should be familiar with the rules on setting up your board. Once you've got your board set up right, both you and your opponent should figure out who makes the first move. Both of you will take a die each, shake, and roll, the player who gets the higher score moves first. The player making the first move would use your single dice result and that of your opponent's, as the rules state.

All your checkers can only move forward towards each player's respective home boards from the highest numbered pip to the lowest. You can move checkers according to what is shown on the dice. You have the option to use both numbers on the two dice to move only one checker or one number for one checker. Let's now move off to where you can land your checkers.

The rules state that you can only land your backgammon checkers on empty pips, pips occupied by your forces, and pips covered only by one checker from your opponent. Now, if you roll a double (like a pair of twos or fours for instance) then a different rule on movement will apply. Rolling doubles means you can use each dice result twice. Rolling a pair of twos mean that you can move one checker two pips forward four times, or two checkers two pips forward twice, or move four checkers two pips forward once (whichever applies).

Now there here are restrictions in the movement rules in backgammon. If you can't use a number on the dice because no landing spot is open (all possible landing pips are blocked off by your opponent) then you waive that move. Another restriction stated in the rules is that if your checker was hit and is on the bar, your first move would have to be to enter that checker before moving any other checker on the backgammon board.

These are the backgammon rules on moving your checkers on the board. You'll become familiar with these rules as you play more games.