How to Setup Your Backgammon Board

Backgammon works very much like chess and checkers. Like both these games players need to know how to set up their backgammon board. Every player should become familiar with the starting position of the checkers on the board. Setting up your board is definitely a part of backgammon basics and should be one of your very first lessons in this game.

Your backgammon board has 24 triangles that are quite narrow. You move your pieces on squares in checkers but in backgammon you move them on these long narrow triangles. These triangles are called points in backgammon. You'll notice that like your checker board the backgammon board will have the points alternate in color. You'll have two rows of points, 12 on your side and 12 on your opponent's.

The 12 points on either side will still be divided into two by the bar thus dividing your backgammon board into four quadrants. The bar is the ridge at the center of your backgammon board. The part of the board to the left of the bar is called the outer board and the side to the right is the home board. So you have your home board and your opponent's home board and both of you will have each an outer board.

Let's move on to positioning your backgammon checkers into what is known as the starting position. The points on your backgammon board will be designated by numbers. Your side will have numbers 12 to one starting from the left. On your opponent's side, the points will be numbered from 13 to 24 starting from the left. Incidentally, your backgammon checkers will be moving from the 24-point (i.e. your opponent's home board) towards your one-point in your very own home board.

Now that we've got your points numbered we can proceed to placing your backgammon checkers correctly. For example half of all your checkers are colored white and the rest are red and you'll be using the white colored checkers. You place two white checkers on your 24-point, five on your 13-point, three on your eight-point, and five on your six-point.

Let's move on to positioning your opponent's backgammon checkers. You place two white checkers on your one-point, five on your 12-point, three on your 17-point, and five on your 19-point. After positioning all the checkers that come along with your backgammon set you'll notice that both sides (i.e. red and white) will mirror each other in the starting position. You should remember this starting position since it is part of backgammon basics.

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