The world of online backgammon offers a lot of options for a beginner. You can play matches, small tournaments, big tournaments and much, much more. This raises the question what should backgammon beginner play? The short answer: tournaments.

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Hypergammon is one of the most recent variants of Backgammon. It is played with only three checkers on each side, starting with one checker on each of the opponent’s 1-point, 2-point and 3-point. Three checkers on each side inevitably means an extremely fast-paced game. It’s an excellent game to play when you take a break from regular backgammon or when you want to warm-up before real action.

Hypergammon starting position.

Doubling cube and the Jacoby rule are used in Hypergammon. The rest of rules are identical to those in regular backgammon.

Since both players have only three checkers it is needless to say that luck plays a greater role in Hypergammon than in regular backgammon - a real treat for a gambler.

Now that you are familiar with hypergammon you can continue reading about Hypergammon strategy

Even though hypergammon is easy and quick game to play, it is not widely available online. You can play hypergammon at Backgammon Masters.

Nacgkammon is one of most popular backgammon variants of all the dozens of variants played all over the world. It was invented by Nack Ballard, one of the great modern backgammon players.

In Nackgammon both players place two additional back checkers on their 2-points; one checker is taken from the mid-point and one from the 6-point. This creates a very interesting setting for the game because both players have four back checkers instead of the usual two. As a result priming games and back games are the core of Nackgammon and the games also tend to be clearly longer than regular Backgammon games.

Nackgammon starting position.

The doubling cube and the Jacoby rule are used in Nackgammon. The rest of the rules are identical to those in Backgammon.

Nackgammon is regarded as a highly strategic backgammon variant - a real thinker’s game. It’ll require a good knowledge of doubling cube strategy, priming and back games as well as holding games. We certainly recommend that you give it a go, it’ll only make you a better backgammon player. Many players like to play one Nackgammon game for every ten backgammon games. If you too follow this regimen you just may find out that you are making more wiser decisions in critical situations than before.

There are quite a few online backgammon sites on the internet and you’ll probably find yourself wondering which one you should choose to play at. A good rule-of-thumb is to go for online backgammon sites that are popular, as they are probably popular for a reason. In terms of online backgammon sites popularity directly correlates with high level of quality, safety, good support and a continuous set of good money tournaments. However, most importantly a popular site offers a large number of opponents to play against around the clock.

On this page we present our current selection of online backgammon sites you might also want to try out.

1. Gammon Empire

Gammon Empire is a huge online backgammon site with more than 10.000 players online at all times. It uses a very good backgammon software that has helped in creating a venue for all backgammon enthusiasts that is hard to match. Thousands of players, educating and fun backgammon school and good choice of tournaments make Gammon Empire perhaps the best online backgammon place to be. Tournaments up to $50,000 in prize pool underline the status of Gammon Empire as the leading online backgammon site.

Tip: If you can, download the Gammon Empire backgammon software. It offers a faster and nicer overall game experience than the online browser version they also have available. Both work perfectly fine but in the long run the downloadable software is the more comfortable option.

Gammon Empire

2. BackgammonMasters

BackgammonMasters is the newest member of our recommended online backgammon sites. BackgammonMasters earns our recommendation not only because of its highly respected position in the backgammon world but also because it offers something most backgammon sites don’t - a personal touch.

As a new player to BackgammonMasters, or also known as BGM, the first thing you should check out is the excellent animated introduction that explaines pretty much everything you need to know to get started. It’s a feature that definitely lowers the threshold for novice players to sign up. Look for the “Guided tour” on the BGM homepage.

BGM offers single and match plays as well as daily Sit & Go and Freeroll tournaments. A BGM speciality is Hypergammon, or HyperBackgammon as it is called at BGM. It’s an fast-paced backgammon variant that the our other top online backgammon sites don’t offer. Check out our Hypergammon rules article in case you are still unfamiliar with this game.

The BackgammonMasters tournaments are well organized with generous prize pools. The winner can cash up anything from $ 10 in the smallest Sit & Go’s to $ 3,000 in larger tournaments. Daily freeroll tournaments are highly popular with the winner getting up to $ 100.

If you would want to describe BackgammonMasters with one word, it would definitely be “cosy”.

BackgammonMasters

3. PartyGammon

When PartyGammon was launched mid-2006 it entered the online backgammon scene with a bang. By hosting the first million dollar tournament (not online, though) in January 2007 it has set a clear goal to establish a solid position in the online backgammon market.

Part of the well-known PartyGaming family (e.g. PartyPoker and PartyBingo), PartyGammon continues the same high-quality approach to online gaming as its brothers and sisters. PartyGammon is very well managed and organized, you can clearly see that PartyGaming has done its homework before going public.

Unfortunately, despite the very promising beginning not that many players have found PartyGammon yet as many of us would’ve hoped for. Is it perhaps the perhaps rigid business-like look and feel? Or perhaps it’s just a matter of time until PartyGammon really takes off? One way or another, PartyGammon is a very good online backgammon site and we sure as heck believe that it will (and already is) putting up a good fight against the biggest online backgammon sites.

Oh, and you know what? PartyGammon is currently the only backgammon site where you can win an entry to a live $1,000,000 tournament. That’s something to think about.

PartyGammon

4. Play65

Play65, the second largest backgammon site on the internet also offers you a great platform to satisfy your backgammon lust. Here too, thousands of players are available for you to challenge, or if you feel like it you might just want to hang out and watch games in real-time and learn from experienced players who take it all away.

Play65 uses the same software as GammonEmpore and therefore the differences between the two sites are minimal.

Play65

Note: Before you head off to one of the sites above, read also our backgammon software review article. We have reviewed the softwares used at the above sites so that you will know what to expect when you are ready to sign up.

Backgammon is a great game to play when getting together with friends and easy enough to learn so you often see kids playing it as well. Its low learning curve, fast pace and good balance between luck and strategy have made backgammon an incredibly popular game worldwide.

However, backgammon is at its best when played for money. It brings out the true nature of backgammon just as it did nearly 5,000 years ago! Establishing your game by taking calculated risks, the unforeseen (and often dramatic) developments that leave your opponent scratching his head, increasing the stakes with the doubling cube - they all contribute to a greatly exciting experience when money is at stake.

When to start playing for money?

When should a backgammon player start playing for real money? Sounds like a difficult question, but is anything but. The simple answer is: as soon as possible. The problem with playing “just for fun” is that it doesn’t turn anyone into a good real money player. Sounds surprising? Well, consider these two facts:

When played just for fun, your opponents don’t play as they would play for real money.
When played just for fun, you don’t play as you would play for real money.

So what does playing for fun really teach? Not much - you don’t play as you would for real money and neither do your opponents. Playing for fun can be fun, but it should only be used for learning the rules. Playing for real from early on is the way to go, if you aim to turn a nice profit by playing backgammon (like most of us do).

Differences between fun and real money games

Playing backgammon for real money differs from playing just for fun in many ways, which severely limits the ability of the “fun” games to be valuable when aiming to become a good real money gamer.

No stupid risks
Players playing for fun often take wild risks. It is easy to do so, because when there is nothing at stake, losing isn’t a big deal. When you play for real, you don’t take silly risks simply because you’ll notice the effect they have on your wallet. Should you first spend too much time playing for fun you are running the risk of developing a bad habit of taking too many risks, which will end up hurting you.

Gammons and backgammons matter
When played for fun, gammons and backgammons spice the game up a little. When played for money, gammons and backgammons became a vital part of the game. Going for gammons and backgammons becomes much more intensive, as you know you are going to win big if you are successful.

Doubling cube
When played for fun, it is easy to double and accept doubles. Actually, it is so easy to accept them that most fun players don’t bother to double at all. When played for real money the doubling cube is one of the most important and interesting parts of the game - and why shouldn’t it be? Handling the doubling cube well increases profits by a sizeable percentage.

Psychology
Playing Backgammon for fun isn’t nerve-wrecking. Playing for money is very much so. Many players have failed at critical stages of their real money matches, just because they collapse under the pressure. The best way of learning to handle things when they get rough is to play for real and slowly increase the stakes from pennies to bucks.

Profit
Playing winning backgammon for fun is, well, fun. Playing winning real money backgammon is profitable. Sometimes even very much so. Also notice how now it is an especially lucrative time to start playing for real money; online backgammon is growing quickly in popularity and it is considered “the next big thing”. Play a while for money and you can start pocketing cash from the newbies that fill the sites.

Final words

Despite all this talk how you should talk about money, keep it cool - newcomers should not start playing for big money straight away! It can wait. Just playing for the minimum stakes teaches a lot about the psychology and tactics of real money backgammon. Only after the small stake games become too easy is it time to increase the stakes and really start winning!

Sit & Go
The most commonly played type of online Backgammon tournaments is sit & go tournaments. Just like the name suggests, these tournaments begin as soon as a predefined number of players has registered for the tournament. Usually sit & gos are for four players, but tournaments of 8, 16, 32 and even 64 players are available.

Buy-in prices for the sit’n'gos vary from as little $5 to $200. As always, the bigger the buy-in, the bigger the pot.

Rating Limited Tournaments
Most Backgammon sites keep track of players performances. Play65 for example gives player a score of 0-2000 depending on how well or badly one does against other players. Rating limited tournaments take advantage of these rankings. Like the name suggests, they are only open to players with skill rating lower than a set limit. This means that players in these tournaments get to play against other players of equal skill level.

Swing Tournaments
In the beginning of a swing tournament each player receive equal amount of chips. Each player in the tournament is randomly matched against one other player for a single game. Player who wins a single game receives an amount of chips from the losing player equal to the tournaments CPP, Chips Per Point. This continues, until until one of the players has accumulated all the chips. To keep the pace up, CPP is raised every few minutes.

Satellites
Satellites are normal tournaments with a scheduled starting time, but they don’t have cash prizes. Instead the winners - usually a certain percentage of the players - win a free entry to a tournament with an expensive buy-in. There is usually several satellites available for bigger tournaments.

It is easy to understand why satellites are popular. $50.000 tournament may have a buy-in price of $175, but satellite to the same tournament may have buy-in of 11$.

Normal tournaments aka Events
Normal tournaments, or “events” as they are called at some sites, have a scheduled starting time and a set buy-in price. Some may have a “guaranteed” price pot, which means that at least the guaranteed sum is divided among the winners. Otherwise the collective buy-in sum of all players minus the sites rake is divided among the winners.

Star tournaments
When you play for real money at Gammon Empire, you receive stars for each dollar you played with (it doesn’t matter if you lost or won). Every now and then there are star tournaments available. These tournaments are free - only buy-in is a certain amount of your stars.