Kevin HY Hau - Hello World 👋

📖 Rules of Backgammon (Tawla)

Two players, 15 checkers each, two dice. White (you) moves from the top right, along the top, down the left side and along the bottom to the bottom right. Black goes the other way round. Get all 15 checkers into your home board (your last six points, the bottom right for White) and then bear them off. First to bear off all 15 wins.

Your turn

• Roll two dice. Each die is a separate move: move one checker that many points, then another (or the same one) the other number. Tap a checker, then tap where it goes. Tap the checker again to play it with the bigger number.
• Doubles (both dice the same) count four times.
• You can’t land on a point where the opponent has 2 or more checkers. You may land on a point with one opposing checker (a “blot”): you hit it and it goes to the bar (the middle strip).
• A checker on the bar must enter first, into the opponent’s home board, on the point matching the die (a 1 enters on the 1-point end, a 6 on the 6-point). If you can’t enter, you lose your turn.
• You must play both numbers if you can, and if only one can be played it must be the larger if possible. The game forces this for you.
• You may only bear off when all your checkers are in your home board. An exact number takes a checker from that point; a bigger number takes the highest one if nothing is higher.

Winning and points

• A normal win scores 1 point. A gammon (the loser has borne off nothing) scores 2. A backgammon (the loser also still has a checker on the bar or in the winner’s home board) scores 3. All these are multiplied by the cube.
• Doubling cube (optional, Standard only): before you roll, you may double the stake. The other player must take (the game goes on at double stakes and they now own the cube) or drop (they lose the current stake). Only the player who doesn’t own the cube can redouble.

Plakoto (pin game)

• All 15 checkers start on the opponent’s 1-point (you start on the far corner, top right for White). No bar and no hitting: if you land on a single enemy checker you pin it. It can’t move until you leave. Two checkers on a point block it.
• The last checker on your starting point is your “mother”: if it is pinned (after the opponent has left their own start), you lose at once for 2 points. A win where the loser has borne off nothing (“mars”) is also worth 2.
• The Egyptian game Mahbousa (“trapped”) is the same idea; house rules differ.

Fevga (blocking game)

• Both sides start with all 15 checkers on a corner (White top right, Black the bottom left) and both travel the same way round (anticlockwise). There is no hitting: a point with any opposing checker is closed to you.
• Your first checker must pass the opponent’s starting corner before any other checker may leave yours. You may not build six points in a row unless an opponent checker is already past them. Winning with the opponent having borne off nothing is 2 points.

This version

• The opening roll: each side throws one die and the higher one plays that roll. You are White; Black is the computer (Easy, Normal or Hard) or a friend (“Pass and play”).
• The computer’s doubling is a rule of thumb, not a bot-grade equity calculation. Hard looks at your best reply to its top choices, so it thinks for a moment.