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60 free Backgammon trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This backgammon trivia quiz covers the whole board: the rules every player knows, the history most players don't, and the competitive world of cubes, chouettes and neural-net bots. Easy questions ask how many men each side has, how many points are on the board, what a hit piece sits on and what a gammon is worth. From there it moves through the doubling cube's numbers, the beaver and the raccoon, pip counts, opening rolls and the models behind take-points. The history section reaches back through Irish, Trictrac and the tables family to Byzantine Tabula, Roman ludus duodecim scriptorum, Persian Nard and the Royal Game of Ur, then forward to Hoyle's 1753 treatise, the 1920s New York clubs that invented the doubling cube, Prince Alexis Obolensky's 1960s revival, the first world championship in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo's long reign as host. The hard end covers Paul Magriel's X-22 nickname, the Oregon court case that ruled backgammon a game of skill, Hypergammon, acey-deucey in the US Navy and IBM's TD-Gammon. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the game, its variants and its champions before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our chess, poker and classic board games quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many pieces does each player start with in standard backgammon?
15
The pieces were traditionally called men, short for tablemen, and are increasingly called checkers in the United States.
Q 02How many points, the triangular spaces, does a backgammon board have in total?
24
Each side of the board carries a track of 12 isosceles triangles, forming a horseshoe-shaped path.
Q 03What is the term for removing your pieces from the board at the end of the game?
Bearing off
You may only start doing it once all fifteen of your pieces are in your home board.
Q 04A single opposing piece sitting alone on a point is called what?
A blot
Landing on it sends it to the bar, from where it must re-enter through your home board.
Q 05Where is a piece placed after it has been hit?
On the bar dividing the board
Early backgammon simply lifted hit men off the table; boards with a working bar came in by around 1850.
Q 06What is a triple-value win called?
A backgammon
It occurs when the loser has borne off nothing and still has a piece on the bar or in the winner's home board, and it gave the game its name.
Q 07How many points is a gammon worth?
2
A gammon happens when the winner bears off all fifteen pieces before the opponent has borne off any.
Q 08What happens when a player rolls doubles?
The number is played four times
A roll of 5-5 therefore lets a player make four separate moves of five spaces each.
Q 09Which numbers are inscribed on the six faces of a doubling cube?
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64
There is no upper limit on redoubles, so stakes can in theory rise to 128 or 256 even though the cube stops at 64.
Q 10At the start of a game the doubling cube sits between the players showing which number face up?
64
In that state the cube is said to be centred on 1, and either player may propose the first double.
Q 11What are points 1 through 6 on your own side called?
The home board
Points 7 to 12 are the outer board, and the 7-point is nicknamed the bar point.
Q 12Which point is sometimes nicknamed the "golden point"?
Fifth
The 13-point is the midpoint and the 7-point is the bar point.
Q 13In the standard starting position, how many pieces begin on the 24-point, the farthest from home?
2
Three sit on the 8-point and five each on the 13-point and 6-point.
Q 14If only one of your two dice can be played, which must you use?
Q 21What is a "prime" in backgammon strategy?
A wall of pieces on consecutive points
A piece trapped behind six consecutive blocked points cannot escape until the wall breaks.
Q 22What does the pip count measure?
Pips needed to bring all your pieces around and off
The difference between the two players' counts is a measure of the leader's racing advantage.
Q 23Under the simple "dead cube" model, what minimum winning chance justifies taking a double?
25%
The higher die
On any roll a player must use both numbers if it is at all possible to do so.
Q 15What must happen before a turn is officially over, allowing no more take-backs?
The player lifts their dice from the board
Until that moment a move can be undone and replayed an unlimited number of times.
Q 16In money play, what is an immediate redouble after accepting a double called?
A beaver
The original doubler may refuse it and resign, or play on with the cube at four times its initial value.
Q 17What is the name for the counter-redouble a player may make after being beavered?
A raccoon
Accepting it means playing with the cube at eight times its initial value.
Q 18Which money-play rule says gammons and backgammons only count extra if the cube has already been turned?
Jacoby
It encourages a player with a big lead to double and end the game rather than play on hoping for a gammon.
Q 19Which backgammon rule bars the doubling cube for one game once a player is one point from winning the match?
Crawford
It is named after John R. Crawford and is routine in match play, though such a game may never actually occur in a match.
Q 20What is a chouette?
Three or more players, one versus a team
Positions rotate after each game, and chouette play often permits several doubling cubes at once.
The live cube model, which credits the taker for owning the cube, puts the take-point at about 20% instead.
Q 24In which decade and where was the doubling cube first introduced?
1920s New York City
Doubles had previously been recorded by placing common parlour matches on the bar.
Q 25The earliest known mention of backgammon by name comes from a letter written in which year?
1647
James Howell spelled it Baggammon; the word most likely comes from back plus the Middle English gamen, meaning game.
Q 26Backgammon's immediate 16th-century predecessor was a tables game with which name?
Irish
It had been popular at the Scottish court of James IV and was considered the more serious game.
Q 27Who published A Short Treatise on the Game of Back-Gammon in 1753?
Edmond Hoyle
It was bound together with a similar text on whist.
Q 28The earliest identifiable tables game, Tabula, is described in an epigram of which Byzantine emperor?
Zeno
Tabula had no bar, and all counters began off the board.
Q 29How many dice were used in the Byzantine game Tabula?
Three
Modern backgammon kept Tabula's rules for hitting and for removing pieces at the end.
Q 30The Roman ancestor of tables games, ludus duodecim scriptorum, is first mentioned in which work?
Ovid's Ars Amatoria
The name means Game of twelve lines; its board had three rows of 12 points, and the Romans also called it alea.