Online Backgammon at Carbon Poker

Carbon Poker offers by far the softest Backgammon games online and there is enough traffic to get games started 24 hours per day, 7 days per week at low to mid stakes, and during peak hours $25/point matches will run if you start a game at these stakes. Don’t get scammed at the larger sites that are filled with perfect play bots, rating scammers, and other forms backgammon cheats. Carbon Poker’s real money backgammon games are fair and for the most part are ultra soft with a lot of inexperienced players moving over from the poker room to give Backgammon a chance.

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If you’re not familiar with Backgammon its much like Texas Hold’em poker in that it’s a game that takes minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. We suggest starting off with a free games website like pogo.com to learn. Players there take the game seriously and play for rating points, badges and more. At gammon sites that offer real money play you’ll have trouble finding good players to play against at their play money tables, so stick to games networks like pogo.com while you’re learning.

How to Play Backgammon

Illustrated to the left is a Carbon Poker Backgammon table where no player has acted yet, this is the initial configuration of the board. You’ll see the game has 12 triangles on each side of the board, these are called points. Also you’ll notice two different colored pieces, these are called checkers, one color belongs you and the other belongs to your opponent. Each player takes turn rolling dice and is forced to move (so long as a move is possible) their checkers across the points. The points are numbered 1-24 and are virtually connected, for example your point number 3 is your opponents point number 22. Each player moves in the direction of higher points to lower points.

Each player starts with two checkers on his point 24, three checkers on his point 8, and five checkers on his point numbers 13 and 6. As you roll the two dice you move your checkers from point to point based on the dice roll. For example if you roll 4-2 you can chose to move a checker 6 points or one checker four and another checker two.

If your opponent has two or more checkers stacked on top of each other this spot is occupied and you can not claim it. However, if you’re opponent has a blot (a single checker sitting alone) and you land on it, this is called a hit and your opponents checker is removed from the board and placed on the bar. He can’t make any more moves till his checkers on the bar are moved back into play. To get back in play he must roll he must roll and move into his zone 19-24 for example a six gets him to point 19 and a one gets him to point 24 etc.

Optimal strategy is about building walls of several double stacked checkers in or around your 1-6 on consecutive points making it more difficult for your opponent to move out once you’ve hit his blot. While this might sound a bit confusing to a beginner with just a little bit of practice you’ll quickly catch on.

The first goal of the game is to get all of your checkers into your home zone (points 1 through six). Once you’ve accomplished this you can start removing checkers from the board based on rolls. For example if you roll a six and a five you can remove a checker from both the five and six slot. Also if your checkers are in your home zone and you roll higher than is available, for example if your checkers are all in slots 1-4 and you roll a five or a six you can remove a checker from the four slot. The first player to remove all their checkers from the board wins.

Multiple Point Games: Games can be played in single game or match play varieties. In match play you are playing till a certain number of points are earned. In these games a single point is earned if you win a match and your opponent has moved some of his checkers off the board. If you win a game and he has not moved any checkers off the board you’ll receive 2 points. If he has not removed any checkers off the board and has one or more checkers still in his zone 19-24 you receive 3 points.

Doubling Cube: In games played with a doubling-cube: at any time a player can offer his opponent a “double”, which means the opponent will need to decide to either forfeit for a single point or accept playing for double the stakes. In non match play games there is a max stake set. So for example if the stakes are $2/$12 this means that each point is worth $2 to start, so if the game is doubled each point will become worth $4. if its doubled again each point is worth $8. However the maximum a player can lose in this example is $12 as the $2 stands for the starting value per point and the $12 stands for the maximum game stake.

One of the best ways to learn backgammon is through practice. Try playing against the best opponents possible in play money games or micro limits and pay attention to how these players play. With some practice you’ll catch on and be able to beat the many very soft real money backgammon games offered at CarbonPoker.com