How long does a game of backgammon take?

Short answer: about five to ten minutes for one game, and most of that is deciding, not moving.

Longer answer: it depends on how you're playing, and the range is wider than you'd think.

One game, played properly

In tournament play with clocks, backgammon games average around 39 moves between the two players. At a thinking pace of ten seconds a move, that's roughly seven minutes of actual play, plus the setting up and the chat.

At home, with no clock and no pressure, five to ten minutes is normal. Online, where the board sets itself up and the dice roll themselves, two or three minutes is common.

A game can also end in thirty seconds, if somebody doubles and the other person passes. The cube is the fastest exit in the game.

A match takes much longer

Most serious backgammon isn't one game, it's a match to a number of points. That changes the arithmetic.

A study of 7-point tournament matches found they averaged about 54 minutes, with the spread running from 9 minutes to 92. Those matches contained about six games each, so around nine minutes a game including all the cube decisions.

As a rough guide for planning an evening: a 5-point match runs 30 to 45 minutes, a 7-point match around an hour, and the long matches at tournaments take two or three.

What makes a game drag

Some games are quick because somebody gets a good start and the other person concedes. The slow ones have a shape in common:

• closeouts, where a player sits on the bar for turn after turn
• back games, where someone deliberately holds two anchors and waits
• mutual holding games, where neither side wants to move first
• repeated hitting, which sends checkers back round the board

None of these can go on forever, but they can go on for a while.

Or you can stretch it over a week

The other option is not to play the whole thing in one go. Played asynchronously, a single game can last days: a move at breakfast, a reply on the train, the next one tomorrow.

The clock time is the same. A move takes about ten seconds. The difference is that the game waits in between, which is why you don't need an hour to play backgammon in the first place.

The short version

• One game: five to ten minutes in person, two to three online.
• Games average around 39 moves between the two players.
• A match to 5 points runs 30 to 45 minutes; a 7-point match averages just under an hour.
• Closeouts, back games and repeated hits are what make a game drag.
• Want it over quickly? The cube ends games. A double and a pass take seconds.
• Only have a minute? Play asynchronously and make one move.