How to Play a Backgammon Game

In this article we describe the process to play a local game, i.e. a game against the computer. The process to play a backgammon game is almost the same in all versions, but, in this article we focus only on the web version. Note, that starting an online game has a slightly different procedure and thus, we will look at it in a new article.

We start the iTavli game by clicking on the PLAY button.

Select Game

Since iTavli supports so many games, the first thing that we need to do is to select which game we want to play.

itavli main screen
iTavli: Main screen, Select game

We use the left and right arrow to browse through the available games. The “i” button in the top right corner of the board gives a few instructions about that game. We start the selected game by clicking on “Play” button. We chose the Backgammon game.

Configure Game

In the next screen, the computer rolls the dice to determine who plays first.

itavli, determing who plays first
iTavli: Determine who plays first, Configure board

In that screen we can also select the layout of the board (left or right), and we can enable the option to undo our last move. During a game we are free to undo a move as many times as we like. But, we can not undo our last move, unless that option is selected. For example, we roll the dice and we get 4 – 3. If we move a checker by 4 or 3 spaces then that is considered to be a move, and we can undo that move. But, when we move another checker by 3 or 4 spaces or we move the first checker by 7 spaces that is consider to be our last move, and we can not undo it. If, however, that option is selected, then after our last move we will see a timer. Before that count down is terminated, we are free to undo our last move and consequently reset the timer.

We click on the “Start Game” button to play the game.

Play Game

Since Web was chosen to be the first player to start the game, it rolls the dice and it makes a move.

iTavli: Roll dice
iTavli: Roll dice

Now, it is our turn to roll the dice, and we click on the “Roll” button. We rolled a 1 – 4.

iTavli: Move checkers
iTavli: Move checkers

We move a checker by other dragging it or by left clicking on it. In the first case, we see with green dots the spaces that that checker can be moved to. In the latter case, the checker is moved to the space that is dictated by the first dice, i.e. 1. We right click on the dice to swap them, i.e. 4 – 1. Now, left click on a checker will move it by 4 spaces. We chose to hit our opponent.

iTavli: Moving checkers
iTavli: Moving checkers

Since we play Backgammon, the white checker is removed from the board. Also, we see that dice 4 is grayed out, which means that we have already used it. Now, we can move another checker or we can undo that move by clicking on the “Undo” button. We chose to protect our single checker, and that ends our turn.

iTavli: End turn
iTavli: End turn

Luckily, our opponent rolled 6 – 6, and it can not put the checker back on the board. It looses the turn, and now it is again our turn.

iTavli: Terminate a game
iTavli: Terminate a game

At any moment we can quit a game by clicking on the “Quit” button. But, that is not nice. We can also resign a game by clicking on the “Resign” button.

Enjoy the game!