About Free Printable Backgammon Rules
Free printable backgammon rules — how to play, board setup, moves, hitting, the bar, bearing off, doubling cube, gammon, backgammon, and the Crawford and Jacoby rules. Full color or ink-saver B&W.
How to use
- Choose your print style. Full color shows a warm wood-tone board with red and white checkers — great as a reference poster. Ink-saver (black & white) switches to a clean greyscale board for an economical class or coffee-table handout.
- Choose whether to show board diagrams. Diagrams on (the default) include the standard opening setup, the hitting and bar-entry sequence, and a bearing-off example. Switch to text only for the most compact, fewest-pages version.
- Read the preview to confirm it is what you want — the rules flow from the goal and setup, through turn flow, hitting and the bar, bearing off, the doubling cube, gammons and backgammons, and common variants like Acey-Deucey, Nackgammon and Hypergammon.
- Click Print Rules to send it to your printer or save it as a PDF. The illustrated guide prints cleanly across a few letter or A4 pages; choose Text only for a compact summary.
Frequently asked questions
How do you set up a backgammon board?
Each player places 15 checkers in the standard starting position: 2 on the 24-point, 5 on the 13-point, 3 on the 8-point, and 5 on the 6-point. The two armies are mirror images and the players move in opposite directions — each toward their own 1-point in their home board. The doubling cube starts on the side of the board, centered between the two players, with 64 facing up (signifying a value of 1).
How does the doubling cube work in backgammon?
Before you roll on any of your turns, you may propose to double the stakes. Your opponent either refuses and concedes the game at the current stake, or accepts and plays on at doubled stakes — gaining ownership of the cube and the exclusive right to offer the next double. Cube faces: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64.
What happens when you hit a blot in backgammon?
A blot is a single checker alone on a point. If you land on a blot, you hit it — that checker goes to the bar. Its owner must re-enter it through your home board (their points 1-6) by rolling matching numbers before they can make any other move on their next turn.
When can you start bearing off in backgammon?
Only once all 15 of your checkers are in your home board. You bear off by rolling the number matching a checker's point (a 4 bears off from the 4-point). Roll higher than your highest occupied point and you bear off from that highest point. Get hit while bearing off and you must bring the barred checker all the way back home before resuming.
What is a gammon and what is a backgammon?
Gammon = winning before the loser has borne off any checkers, scoring ×2 the cube value. Backgammon = winning while the loser still has a checker on the bar or in your home board, scoring ×3 the cube value. A normal win counts for the cube value alone.
What is the Crawford rule?
In match play to N points, when one player first reaches N − 1 (one away from winning the match), the doubling cube is barred from use for the following game only — the Crawford game. After that one game, normal doubling resumes. The rule prevents an automatic double from the trailing player on every remaining game.
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