When Orienting and Setting up a Board

While setting up a backgammon board we must remember several things. A correctly oriented and setup board is an important factor for the smooth run of the game. On slight error in setup can mess up everything.

First, we have to check the contents of our backgammon board. There should be 30 checker pieces in all—15 white pieces and 15 black pieces. There should be 2 pairs of dice, a cup where dice are shaken before rolling, and a doubling cube for making daring challenges later. When we have these things complete we should then orient the board correctly.

We orient the board correctly by assigning numbers to points. The lower right-hand point is where we have our 1-point. Then we move clockwise as we assign each point a number. The upper right-hand point is the 24-point. After this numbering we have a properly oriented board. We begin to place the checker pieces: 2 pieces on 24-point, 5 on 13, 3 on 8, and 5 on 6.

The opponent does the same orientation. The opponent should have checker pieces on the points opposite where our pieces are and with the same number of pieces. So 1-point has 2 enemy checkers, 6-point has 5 of our checkers, 8-point has 3 of our pieces, 12-point has 5 enemy checkers, 13-point has 5 of our checkers, 17-point has 3 enemy checkers, 19-point has 5 enemy checkers, and 1-point has 2 of our checkers. With this the backgammon board is setup and oriented correctly.

Remember, too, that backgammon checkers never move backwards. Some chess and American checkers pieces can move backwards, but not backgammon checkers. They either move forward or made to wait when obstructed by a prime or anchor until a favorable turn. We are not allowed to move our checkers on a point where 2 or more enemy checkers are on. It is very favorable to move our checkers on a point where there is a lone enemy checker.

However, we can observe that at the start of a game, when the board is newly setup, no point has a lone checker piece on it. During our first few moves it is inevitable that we should land on a free or empty point. And because of this, we cannot help but form blots at the outset of a game. This is enforced by then initial board setup.

Thus, a backgammon board orientation and setup should be done correctly. This is accomplished through numbering points.