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There are many variants of standard backgammon rules. Some are played primarily throughout one geographic region, and others add new tactical elements to the game. Variants commonly alter the starting position, restrict certain moves, or assign special value to certain dice rolls, but in some geographic regions even the rules and directions of the checkers movement change, rendering the game fundamentally different.

Acey-deucey is a variant of backgammon in which players start with no checkers on the board, and must bear them on at the beginning of the game. The roll of 1-2 is given special consideration, allowing the player, after moving the 1 and the 2, to select any desired doubles move. A player also receives an extra turn after a roll of 1-2 or of doubles.^[1]

Hypergammon is a variant of backgammon in which players have only three checkers on the board, starting with one each on the 24-, 23- and 22-points. The game has been strongly solved, meaning that exact equities are available for all 32 million possible positions.^[2][3]

Nackgammon is a variant of backgammon invented by Nick "Nack" Ballard^[10] in which players start with one fewer checker on the six point and midpoint and two checkers on the 23 point.^[4][5]

Russian backgammon is a variant in which players start with no checkers on the board, and both players move in the same direction to bear off in a common home board. In this variant, doubles are more powerful: four moves are played as in standard backgammon, followed by four moves according to the difference of the dice value from 7, and then the player has another turn (with a few exceptions).^[6]

Tric-trac is a French variant of Backgammon.^[7] There are two main forms of the game, le Grand Tric-trac and le Petite Tric-trac.^[8] In Tric-trac, the starting point is called a talon, the points, or flèche, are numbered to 12 on both sides of the board, with the 12th point on either side called the coin de repos, or, simply, coin. The 11th point (on either side) is often called le case d'écolier, or "schoolboy's point" (case literally meaning "box") after the tendency of inexperienced players to rush to this point too soon in the game.^[9] Statistically, the most difficult points in the game to reach aside from the coins are the 8th points, and they are named les flèches de diable ("the Devil's points") for this reason.^[10] The home boards are referred to as the jan de retour by either player. Doubles are treated as two identical numbers, unlike backgammon proper.^[11]

Gul Bara and Tapa are also variants of the game popular in southeastern Europe and Turkey. The play will iterate among Backgammon, Gul Bara, and Tapa until one of the players reaches a score of 7 or 5.

Another simple variant of Backgammon is to only allow a maximum of five checkers on any point. This variation is not part of the official rules, but has proved popular with casual players in some regions (e.g., Britain).^[12]

References

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