How to play

Your home is always the bottom right of your screen. Your checkers travel around the board to get there: top row right to left, down the left side, bottom row left to right. Roll, then tap a checker and tap where it goes. Each die is one move; doubles give you four.

You can't land on a point holding two or more of your opponent's checkers. Land on a single one and you send it to the bar, and it has to come back in before that player moves anything else.

Once all fifteen of your checkers are home, start bearing them off. First one off with all fifteen wins. Win before your opponent gets any off and it's a gammon. Win while they still have a checker on the bar or in your home and it's a backgammon.

The board only allows legal moves, including the rule that you must use both dice if you can, and the larger one if you can only use one. Move guides start off, so you count the spaces yourself. If you want help seeing your legal moves, turn them on with the Move guides button under the board. Lessons and coached games always show them.

The pip count on each nameplate is how far that player still has to travel. Lower is better. If you're ahead, race home. If you're behind, hang back and build points to block.

New to the game? Do the lessons, then play a coached game.

The doubling cube. It starts off. At the start of your turn, before you roll, you can double the stakes. Your opponent either takes, and plays on for twice as much with the cube on their side, or drops, and loses right then at the old value. Only the player holding the cube can double next. Take when you'd win at least 1 game in 4. Gammons and backgammons only count extra once someone has doubled (the Jacoby rule).

Bracket tournaments. Start one from Bracket Tournaments on the home page, pick 4, 8 or 16 players, and send the invite link. When it fills up, or when the organizer taps Start now, the bracket is drawn at random. The Tillman family fills any empty spots so nobody sits out (Tillman Jr. plays Easy, Tillman plays Normal, Tillman III and up play Hard), unless the organizer chose byes. The organizer can also add Tillmans on purpose. Winners move on automatically, and the last one standing is champion. If the organizer set a time limit and someone sits on a move longer than that, Tillman takes their seat for the rest of the tournament, and their name becomes, for example, "Will Tillman."

Agreeing on settings. Before the first roll of every game, both players see the settings: length, cube and, in tournaments, the time limit. Online, either player can change them until you both tap Agree. The cube starts on.

Matches. Pick Match to 3, 5 or 7 instead of 1 game and you play game after game until someone reaches that score. Each game is worth 1, 2 or 3 points times the cube, gammons count even without a double, and the game right after someone gets within one point is the Crawford game, where nobody can double. Winning the match is worth gold bars equal to its length.

Turning the cube on or off. Before a game: the Doubling cube button next to Send a challenge link in the lobby, or on the Who's playing? screen for pass and play. During a game: tap the cube on the middle bar, or open More. Online, only the player who created the room can switch it, and nobody can once someone has doubled.