How to bear off in backgammon

Taking your checkers off the board is the last part of a game and the part with the most rules in it. Here is all of it.

Bearing off means taking a checker off the board altogether. The first player to bear off all fifteen wins the game. Everything below assumes the board and the numbering from how to play backgammon: the points are numbered from your seat, 24 furthest away down to 1 nearest home, and your checkers travel from 24 towards 1.

When you can start

You may not take a single checker off until all fifteen are in your home board - points 1 to 6. Fourteen home and one on point 7 is not enough, and neither is fourteen home and one on the bar.

All fifteen in your home board, then bearing off starts. One checker anywhere else and every die has to be played on the board instead.

This is why the last few checkers coming round matter more than they look. A checker on point 8 with everything else home costs you turns you cannot spend taking checkers off, and your opponent is spending theirs doing exactly that.

The exact roll

A die takes a checker off the point with that number. A four takes one off point 4, a one takes one off point 1. That is the ordinary case and most of what happens.

Each die is a separate move, so a roll of 5 and 2 takes one checker off point 5 and another off point 2. Doubles are four moves as they always are, so double 3 can take four checkers off point 3 - or as many as are standing there, with the threes left over falling to the rules below.

When the die is higher than any checker you have left

Roll a six with nothing on point 6 and the six is not wasted. It takes a checker off your highest occupied point - but only if there is genuinely nothing above it.

A die larger than the point takes a checker off, provided no checker of yours sits further from home than that one.

Checkers on points 4, 3 and 1. You roll a six.

The six takes one off point 4. Nothing sits further back than point 4, so the highest checker comes off.

Checkers on points 5 and 4. You roll a six.

The six takes one off point 5, not point 4. Point 5 is the highest you occupy; the checker on 4 has one behind it and cannot be the one that leaves.

Checkers on points 6 and 2. You roll a five.

Nothing comes off. There is no checker on point 5, and the one on point 6 is further back than five, so the five has to be played on the board: 6 to 1.

When the die is lower than the point

Roll a two with your furthest-back checker on point 6 and nothing on point 2, and the two is an ordinary move: 6 to 4. Checkers move down through the home board as normal while you are bearing off, and often that is the better play anyway: an empty point with checkers still behind it is a number you will roll later and not be able to take anything off with.

You do not have to bear off

If a die can legally be played inside your home board, you may play it there instead of taking a checker off. bearoff will not force you: it checks that you have used as many dice as the rules require, not that you have used them the greedy way.

That matters more than it sounds while your opponent still has a checker back in your home board waiting to hit you. Taking a checker off can leave a lone checker - a blot - where filling a gap would not, and one hit at this stage sends a checker all the way round again.

If you are hit while bearing off

The checker goes to the bar, exactly as it would at any other point in the game, and has to re-enter in your opponent's home board and travel the whole way round. Until it is home, you are not bearing off at all - the fifteen-at-home rule applies again from scratch, and any checkers already off stay off.

It is the single most expensive thing that can happen to you, and it is only possible while your opponent still holds a point in your home board. Once they have nothing back there, bearing off cannot go wrong and the game is a straight race.

Finishing

The fifteenth checker off ends the game. What it is worth depends on how far behind your opponent was: one point normally, two if they have not borne off a single checker, three if on top of that they still have a checker on the bar or in your home board.