Learning to Play Backgammon, Part I
Fundamentally, Backgammon is a pretty simple, two-player "racing" game. You and your opponent both have a certain number of pieces (called checkers) on the board and you roll the dice to try and get them home as quickly as you can. Really, it's like a much more simplified and stripped down version of Chutes & Ladders or Life, or any other game in which you have to get somewhere before your opponent.
A couple subtle nuances aside, such as "bearing off," and "hitting," and "primes," and "inner and outer boards," and the dreaded "doubling cube"...that's about all there is to the game of Backgammon. Unlike Chess, you can learn it and be comfortable playing it in about 10 minutes. Also unlike Chess, "chance" plays an enormous role in the game of Backgammon, since Backgammon is a dice game.
In Chess the only part of the game left to chance is the drawing of who goes first, white or black. Everything after that depends on what is going on inside the minds of the two players. In Backgammon, on the other hand, you can have the greatest strategy in the world but if the dice are not your friend during a particular game, you're going to lose. A game can be made or broken based on a few rolls of the dice. This makes the game at once much more frustrating than Chess, but also makes it less "personal."
More frustrating because, as I mentioned, you can do everything right and still have your entire game plan under-cut by your opponent's lucky roll of double sixes three times in a row (or whatever). But you also feel less responsible for a game of Backgammon, precisely because it is so dependent on luck. If you lose at Chess, there is nothing and no one else to blame: it was your mind vs. someone else's, and you came up short. In Backgammon you can always blame the dice.
Why Do I Like Backgammon?
1.) Simplicity. Backgammon is a classic game that's simple and easy to learn. It is played all over the world and has been played for millennia. There is very rarely a need to consult the "rule book" or delve into a complex explanation of how to play the game. All anyone needs to know how to do in order to play Backgammon is count. You do not need to know pop culture, or trivia, or commit four hours to playing the game, or even speak the same language as your opponent. Furthermore, unlike a game like Chess, you can play someone way beyond your skill level and still have a chance of beating them, or at least having a good game.
2.) Brevity. A full game of Backgammon takes approximately 10 minutes. Which is why in tournament play one "round" can consist of a best of 11 or best of 15 series. Everyone has probably played that "never ending game" of Risk or Monopoly that had to be set aside and resumed the next day. This is never the case with Backgammon. It's a perfect way to kill a half hour at the coffee shop or to take a quick break from work and play a game on your phone (not that I ever do that). There are some cool Backgammon apps.
3.) The Unexplainable. What draws us to anything? Why do some people like to run and others like to cycle? Why do some people like to read non-fiction and others like romance novels? Who knows. I like Backgammon because -- as simple as it sounds -- I like looking at the board. All those jagged points sticking straight out at each other like massive teeth. Even before I knew how to play I remember looking at a Backgammon board and asking myself, "What kind of exotic game could possibly be played on this?" I also like dice games. Backgammon is like life in a way because you can do everything right, plan your strategy, put all your pieces in order, but then at some point everything is in the hands of the universe. We only have a limited amount of control in this world, and on the Backgammon board. After a certain point, it's all up to a roll of the dice.
Stay tuned for Part II...
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