Backgammon Duel
Full-rules backgammon on a felt tavern board: hit blots, build primes, bear off, and play the doubling cube in matches against six computer rivals or a friend.
Backgammon Duel is a complete backgammon game on a mahogany and green felt board. Every rule is here: entering from the bar, hitting blots, doubles played four times, using both dice whenever possible (and the larger one when only one fits), exact and overshoot bearing off, gammons, backgammons and a working doubling cube with the Crawford rule. Checkers slide and hop between points, dice tumble, and every hit lands with a thump and a burst of sparks.
You climb a tavern ladder of six rivals. Lucky Lou plays a single game and moves at random, Captain Brine races greedily for home, and Madame Mosaic loves building points. Professor Pips and Rhea the Raider use a full position evaluator that weighs pip count, primes, home board strength and blot danger, and Rhea hunts loose checkers on purpose. The Iron Abbot looks ahead at every reply roll before he moves. Matches grow from one game to three, five and seven points, and the computer will double you when it smells a win.
It is great for learning backgammon strategy at a gentle pace and for seasoned players who want a fair fight. Tip: keep your checkers in pairs early, because a single blot within six pips of an enemy checker gets hit about a third of the time. Switch to 2 Players for pass-and-play matches.
How to play
Move all 15 of your white checkers around the board into your home quarter (points 1-6), then bear them off. Roll the dice, then tap a checker and a highlighted point to move it by one die. Doubles let you move four times. A single enemy checker is a blot: land on it to send it to the bar, where it must re-enter before anything else moves. Win games for 1 point, a gammon for 2 or a backgammon for 3, multiplied by the doubling cube. Reach the match target to beat a rival and unlock the next one.
Controls
- Mouse / tap: Tap a checker, then a highlighted point or the tray
- Tap the dice / Space: Roll
- Arrow keys + Enter: Cycle legal moves and play one
- D: Offer a double
- A / N: Accept or decline a double
- U / Z / Backspace: Undo a move this turn
- P / Esc: Pause
- M: Mute
Category: Board games
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