A Backgammon board is made up of 24 triangular "points" and has two end-zones. Game play involves a player moving all of their
15 tokens from their starting points until all tokens are in the player's end-zone. At which point the player can begin to move their
tokens into their goal.
To start the game, each player throws one die. If both dice are identical, the players will roll again,
repeating if necessary, until the dice no longer match. The player who rolls the highest gets to move first
using the face values of the most recent dice roll.
Tokens are moved along the points in a loop from the opponent's goal towards the player's goal.
Players move one token at a time the number of points for each die cast. Players are obligated to make
moves whenever possible, even if the only possible moves would be detrimental to the player's game.
An available token may progress to any of the following points: (1) a point already containing other tokens of the same color, (2) a point
having only one of the opponent's tokens on it, or (3) a point with no tokens on it. You may not move a token to a point occupied by two or more of your
opponent's tokens.
A player "captures" an opponent's token by moving on to a point that contains a single opposing token (a "blot"). That token is then moved to the
captured zone (down the center of the playing board). Captured tokens can only be moved if the player rolls a value that is a valid move
for that token. If a player has a captured token, the only valid first move is to move all captured tokens out of the captured zone. If
the player cannot make a move with a captured token, then the player forfeits any remaining dice-moves.
There are no partial moves: a player must move a token by the exact number of points specified by the value of a die. If you roll a
double, you have to use as many of the resulting four dice as you can.
For most Backgammon games, there is no limit on the number of tokens that may rest on a point (Old English, a 5-token-point-limit game
being the only currently supported exception). A point housing 2 or more tokens of the same player is blocked against an opponent, his
tokens may not land on that point. When a player cannot move because of blocked points, he loses the move.
Once a player has moved all of his tokens into their inner table, they can start to remove
the tokens and add them into their goal. The player can then either move their tokens within their inner table or move
them to their goal. When casting a number higher than any point covered, a token from the highest point may bear off instead.
The first player to move all of his tokens from his inner table to his goal wins the game.