- checker
- One of the fifteen pieces you move. Some people call them stones or men.USBGF
- point
- One of the twenty-four triangles. You own a point when you have two or more checkers on it, and then your opponent cannot land there.USBGF
- made point
- A point you hold with two or more checkers. He cannot land on it, so it is both a home for your checkers and a wall in his way.See also block, prime.USBGF
- open point
- A point you are allowed to land on: empty, yours, or holding just one enemy checker — a blot you would hit.USBGF
- blot
- A single checker alone on a point. He can hit it and send it to the bar.USBGF
- spare
- A checker on a point you already hold, beyond the two that hold it. Spares are the checkers you are free to move.See also builder, timing.USBGF
- stack
- Too many checkers piled on one point. They cannot all be doing useful work, and they are not where the next point wants to be made.See also spare, builder.USBGF
- bar
- The ridge down the middle of the board. A checker that has been hit waits there until it can enter again.USBGF
- home board
- Your last six points, 1 to 6. Every one of your checkers has to reach it before you may bear off.See also outer board, board strength.USBGF
- outer board
- The quadrant next to your home board, points 7 to 12.USBGF
- outfield
- The middle of the board, away from either home board — roughly the 7 to 18 points.USBGF
- quadrant
- One of the four sixes of the board. Counting how many times a checker must cross from one to the next is a quick way to compare two positions late in a game.See also crossover.USBGF
- mid point
- Your 13 point, where five of your checkers start.USBGF
- bar point
- Your 7 point, the one beside the bar. Made, it joins your 8 and 6 points into a wall of three.See also prime.USBGF
- golden point
- The 5 point. The best point to make early: it guards your home board and it stands exactly where his back checkers want to go.USBGF
- ace point
- The 1 point, the deepest in your home board. Checkers put there early are usually wasted.See also bury.USBGF
- bury
- To move a checker so deep into your home board that it can no longer help make a point or hit anything.See also ace point, wastage.USBGF
- wastage
- Pips spent on checkers that will do no more work — buried deep, or stacked where they cannot be used.See also bury.USBGF
- anchor
- A point you hold in or near his home board. It gives your back checkers somewhere safe to stand and something to wait for.See also advanced anchor, deep anchor.USBGF
- advanced anchor
- An anchor on his 4, 5 or bar point — far enough forward to be useful in a race as well as safe.USBGF
- deep anchor
- An anchor on his 1, 2 or 3 point. Safe, but a long way from home and in nobody's way.See also back game.USBGF
- back checkers
- The two checkers that start furthest from home, on your 24 point. Getting them out is the hardest job in the game.See also escape, anchor.USBGF
- straggler
- A checker left far behind the rest of your army.USBGF
- pip
- One step of a checker's journey. Also one of the spots on a die.USBGF
- pip count
- How many pips you need to bring every checker home and off. The lower count is ahead in the race.USBGF
- crossover
- A checker moving from one quadrant into the next.USBGF
- enter
- To bring a checker from the bar back onto the board, into his home board. You may do nothing else until you have.See also dance.USBGF
- dance
- To sit on the bar unable to enter, because he holds every point you could come in on. Also called fanning.See also close out.USBGF
- run
- To move a back checker a long way towards home in one go.See also escape, running game.USBGF
- escape
- To get a back checker out past his blockade.USBGF
- split
- To move one of your two back checkers, leaving each of them alone. It aims at an anchor and it accepts being hit.USBGF
- slot
- To put a lone checker on a point you mean to make next roll, inviting a hit for the chance to cover it.USBGF
- cover
- To add a second checker to a blot, turning it into a made point.USBGF
- hit
- To land on his blot and send it to the bar. He loses the ground that checker had made and must enter before doing anything else.USBGF
- break a point
- To move a checker off a point you hold, leaving fewer than two behind.See also clear a point.USBGF
- clear a point
- To move every checker off a point. Different from breaking it: a point with one checker left on it is neither held nor cleared.USBGF
- bear in
- To bring your last checkers into your home board, ready to take off.USBGF
- bear off
- To take checkers off the board. You may start once all fifteen are in your home board. First to take all fifteen off wins.USBGF
- safe
- Out of reach: no blot of yours where he can get at it.See also shot.USBGF
- shot
- A chance to hit.USBGF
- direct shot
- A blot six pips away or fewer, so a single die reaches it. The closer it is the more numbers hit.USBGF
- indirect shot
- A blot more than six pips away, so hitting needs both dice. Much less likely than a direct shot.USBGF
- return shot
- The shot he gets at you immediately after you have hit him.USBGF
- double hit
- Hitting two of his blots with one roll. He then has two checkers to bring back in.USBGF
- pick and pass
- To hit with one die and carry the same checker on to safety with the other.USBGF
- point on a blot
- To make a point on the very square his blot was standing on, hitting it as you do. Two jobs in one roll.USBGF
- duplication
- Arranging your checkers so that the same number he wants for one job is the number he needs for another. He cannot do both.USBGF
- diversification
- Arranging your checkers so that as many of your numbers as possible have something useful to do next roll.USBGF
- builder
- A spare checker close enough to a point to help make it next roll.See also slot, stack.USBGF
- block
- A made point standing in the way of his checkers.USBGF
- prime
- Made points in a row. Four or five in a row is very hard to jump; each one you add makes his escape harder.See also full prime, broken prime.USBGF
- full prime
- Six made points in a row. Nothing can jump it — a checker behind a full prime cannot move past at all until you break it.USBGF
- broken prime
- A run of blocking points with a gap in it. The gap is the number he is hoping to roll.USBGF
- close a point
- To make one of the six points in your home board.See also close out, board strength.USBGF
- close out
- All six of your home board points made while he has a checker on the bar. He cannot move at all until you open one.See also blitz.USBGF
- board strength
- How many points of your home board you hold. It decides how much a hit is worth: hitting into a strong board may cost him several rolls.USBGF
- timing
- Having moves to spare. If every checker is already as far forward as it can safely go, you are forced to break something.See also spare.USBGF
- race
- The contest to get all your checkers round and off first. Once neither side can hit the other, the pip count decides it.USBGF
- running game
- A plan of simply running for home, taken when you are ahead in the race.USBGF
- holding game
- Holding an anchor while he brings his checkers home, waiting for the shot he must eventually leave.USBGF
- back game
- Holding two deep anchors and playing for a late hit. Hard to play and easy to get wrong.USBGF
- blitz
- Attacking his blots in your home board, hitting again and again to keep him on the bar while you close points behind him.See also close out.USBGF
- priming game
- Building a prime in front of his back checkers and walking it home.USBGF
- ace-point game
- A back game played from his ace point alone. The last hope of a lost position.USBGF
- gammon
- Winning before he has borne off a single checker. Worth double.USBGF
- backgammon
- Winning while he still has a checker on the bar or in your home board. Worth triple, and rare.USBGF
- doubling cube
- The die marked 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, used to raise the stakes.See also double, take, drop.USBGF
- double
- To offer to play on for twice the stake. He must take or drop before he rolls.USBGF
- take
- To accept a double and play on for twice the stake, with the doubling cube now on your side.USBGF
- drop
- To refuse a double and concede the current stake rather than play on.USBGF
- beaver
- In money play, to take a double and immediately turn the cube again, keeping it.USBGF
- too good to double
- So far ahead that offering the doubling cube would be a mistake — he would drop, when playing on is likely to win you a gammon.USBGF
- lose your market
- To get so far ahead between one turn and the next that the double you did not offer would now be dropped.USBGF
- crawford game
- In match play, the single game after one player reaches one point from victory, played without the doubling cube.USBGF
- jacoby rule
- In money play, gammons and backgammons count only if the doubling cube has been turned.USBGF
- match play
- A series of games played to a target score.USBGF
- money game
- Games played for a stake each, rather than to a target score.USBGF
- equity
- What a position is worth, counted in points, taking into account how often it wins, loses, and wins or loses a gammon.USBGF
- ply
- One level of looking ahead. At 0-ply the engine judges the position in front of it; at 2-ply it considers your move, all twenty-one of his possible rolls, and his best reply to each.GNU Backgammon
- rollout
- Playing a position out to the end many thousands of times and averaging the result. Slower than a ply-based guess, and more trustworthy.GNU Backgammon
- error rate
- The average equity you throw away per decision. It is how a bot measures a player.See also pr.GNU Backgammon
- pr
- Performance rating: error rate multiplied by 500, so that a world-class player scores under 5 and a beginner well over 15.GNU Backgammon
- blunder
- A move that throws away a lot of equity — on these pages, more than 0.080.GNU Backgammon