Choose short backgammon for this guide
Each player has fifteen checkers. Your goal is to bring all of them into your home board, then remove them from the board before your opponent does. Removing a checker is called bearing off. In the short variant, the checkers begin spread across several points and the players travel in opposite directions.
Happy Games also has long backgammon. Its starting arrangement, movement and restrictions differ, and it has no hitting or bar. Use the short variant when practising the examples below; do not apply the hitting rules to a long game.
Treat the dice as separate moves
A roll of 3 and 1 gives a three-point move and a one-point move. You can move two different checkers, or move one checker twice. Moving one checker a total of four points still requires a legal intermediate landing: either three points followed by one, or one followed by three. You cannot skip over an unavailable intermediate point by treating the roll as a single four.
You must use as many dice values as the position legally allows. A first move that prevents you from using the second die is unavailable when another sequence uses both. If only one of two different values can be played, use the higher playable value. Doubles, such as 4 and 4, give four moves of four points, subject to the same legal-move requirement.
Check every landing point
You may land on an empty point or one occupied by your own checkers. A point with two or more opposing checkers is blocked. You may pass over it while counting a die, but you cannot finish that die's move there.
A single opposing checker is different: landing on it hits that checker and sends it to the bar. Your moving checker occupies the point. Your own single checkers are vulnerable in exactly the same way, so examine both the destination and the point you leave behind.
Re-enter from the bar before moving elsewhere
When one of your checkers is on the bar, bringing it back into play takes priority over moving your other checkers. Each die selects an entry point in the opponent's home board. An entry point containing two or more opposing checkers is blocked; a single opposing checker can be hit on entry.
If neither die permits entry, the turn ends without a move. If you re-enter your last checker from the bar and still have a playable die, you can use that remaining value normally.
Bear off only when every remaining checker is home
You cannot bear off while you have a checker outside your home board or on the bar. Once all your remaining checkers are home, an exact die value can remove a checker that far from the exit. For example, a 3 can bear off a checker three points from the exit.
A higher value can remove your farthest remaining checker if none of your checkers are farther from the exit. If your farthest checker is on the fourth point, a 6 can remove it. If another checker remains on the fifth point, you cannot use that 6 to remove the checker on the fourth point. Bringing a hit checker back around the board may therefore delay bearing off.
Practise reading a complete turn
The Happy Games website demonstration fixes the roll at 3 and 1. First, a white checker moves three points from the bottom-right stack. Another checker then leaves the same stack and moves one point. Watch the two different checkers and the two separate dice being used. This is one legal sequence, rather than a claim that it is the strongest opening.
Before your next full-game move, check for a checker on the bar, examine both dice orders and look at the single checkers your move will leave exposed. Those three habits turn a roll into a considered decision.