How long does it take to master backgammon?

In 1989, the future backgammon author Jeremy Bagai learned the game from a college friend and quickly felt he understood it. His friend kept winning, so he found a book and began studying. In 2001, he published his own book, Classic Backgammon Revisited, which used computer analysis to find errors in move recommendations from five earlier books by other authors, including Paul Magriel’s Backgammon and Bill Robertie’s Advanced Backgammon. These were books he had studied for years, and revisiting them helped him question ideas he had absorbed, as he explains in an interview about his book.

Anyone asking how long backgammon takes to master will recognise the difficulty here. Early on, knowing what you are allowed to do can feel close to knowing what you should do. Once you can play without consulting the rules, the decisions you have barely noticed begin to occupy whole evenings.

What would count as being good?

Being able to sit down with a friend, set up the board and finish a game is an achievable first goal. Playing confidently against experienced club players asks considerably more of you: counting shots, comparing the race, recognising a plan and understanding when the doubling cube changes the decision.

At a stronger level, you also need to judge when familiar advice has stopped applying. Making your five-point is usually attractive, but the rest of the board may give you a more urgent job. A position that calls for caution at one match score may reward taking a risk at another. Each of these distinctions adds something to what you mean by “knowing backgammon”.

We have not found a reliable study that turns hours of backgammon practice into a timetable for those milestones. A promise of mastery in six months would need to specify the starting player, the work involved and the standard being measured. You can still choose a useful goal for the coming month: become comfortable counting entry rolls, for example, and check whether you can do it on unfamiliar boards.

When an explanation feels obvious

Reading a good explanation is a pleasant experience because everything you need is already in front of you. The author has selected the relevant features and shown how they fit together. During a game, you have to notice those features yourself, often while thinking about several other possibilities.

Backgammon teacher Phil Simborg describes repeatedly reviewing his errors without fully learning the reasons behind them. His account of learning from mistakes recommends changing a position and examining what makes the preferred play change. That is a practical way to discover whether you understand the original explanation.

There is related evidence from memory research. In a 2006 experiment, Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke found that students who practised recalling prose remembered more after a delay than students who repeatedly reread it, although rereading produced greater confidence. The experiment concerned texts rather than backgammon; it gives us a reason to try recalling an idea before looking at its explanation, without telling us how quickly that will improve our play.

Try the distinction on two boards

Entry from the bar makes a useful small example. An opposing point occupied by two or more checkers is closed to you, while a lone opposing checker can be hit. With one checker on the bar, either die can supply an entry number. Those rules are enough to solve both questions below.

One idea, then one checker changes

You are Ivory, with one checker on the bar. How many of the 36 rolls let you enter it? Count before opening the answer.

Read the position

Ivory, point: number of checkers. 1: 4, 2: 5, 3: 5. Red: 20: 2, 21: 3, 22: 3, 23: 3, 24: 4. On the bar: Ivory 1, Red 0. Borne off: Ivory 0, Red 0.

Show the count

You need at least one 6. There are six rolls with a 6 on the first die and six with a 6 on the second; since 6–6 appears in both groups, the count is 6 + 6 − 1 = 11 rolls out of 36.

Red has moved just one checker, from 20 to 21. Count the entering rolls again, remembering the lone checker left on 20.

Read the position

Ivory, point: number of checkers. 1: 4, 2: 5, 3: 5. Red: 20: 1, 21: 4, 22: 3, 23: 3, 24: 4. On the bar: Ivory 1, Red 0. Borne off: Ivory 0, Red 0.

Show the count

Either a 5 or a 6 now gets you in: a 5 hits the lone red checker on 20. You fail to enter only when both dice show numbers from 1 to 4, which accounts for 4 × 4 = 16 rolls. The other 20 rolls out of 36 let you enter.

Numbers are from Ivory’s perspective: a 6 enters on 19, a 5 on 20. We count rolls that allow entry at least once, without estimating the chance of winning the game.

If you found the first answer and then adjusted the count correctly after the checker moved, you have used the idea in a changed position. If the second board caused trouble, it also tells you what to revisit: perhaps recognising an open entry point, or counting rolls without counting a double twice. Either finding is more specific than a feeling that you ought to be better by now.

Where Adventure and the little games fit

This is the kind of work you can do in the Adventure and puzzles section of CUBE Backgammon. Adventure gives the ideas an order, while the individual games let you spend longer with something that needs attention.

For the example above, 36 Grid helps you see the equally likely dice outcomes, and Will It Enter? asks you to count entry chances against different home boards. Shot Counter applies dice counting to hitting a blot. Pip Sprint works on reading the race and connecting the count to a cube decision. Each game gives you a smaller question to concentrate on than a full match does.

You might work through an Adventure stop, return to the corresponding game on another day, and then look for the same idea in your next full game. A useful follow-up to the exercise here is to count your entry chances before rolling when you next have a checker on the bar. You can check the arithmetic afterwards; during play, the job is to recognise that this is a moment when the count matters.

Completing a chapter shows that you have passed its challenges. To see how securely the ideas have settled, try them again after a break and pay attention to whether you recognise them during a game, where no exercise title tells you what to look for.

A way to notice the time paying off

Keep one position you found difficult, write down your choice and the reason for it, then return to it later without opening the answer. When you get it right, change something relevant: open another point, move a builder or alter the match score. Your explanation should account for whatever that change does to the decision.

As more of these small judgements become familiar, you have more attention available for the rest of the board. Counting entry rolls no longer has to interrupt your thinking about what happens after you get in. A racing count can become part of deciding whether to maintain contact. The separate exercises begin to join up.

After working on entry counts, you have a specific change to watch for in your play: your opponent breaks a point, and you notice the extra ways in before the dice land. You can explain where those additional rolls came from, even though this board has never appeared in an exercise.