How to Bear Off Safely in Backgammon
Bearing off is the last stage of a backgammon game: once all fifteen of your checkers are in your home board, you use your dice to take them off, and the first side to clear the board wins. To bear off safely, clear your highest points first, don’t leave a single checker where your opponent can hit it, and only race flat out once there’s no contact left.
The basic rules, including what happens when you roll a number higher than your highest checker, are on our backgammon rules page. This post is about the choices. Every position below is drawn on our own board, and every number comes from our game’s rules engine: shot counts by playing all 36 of the opponent’s replies, race figures by playing out every roll to the end.
Play backgammon now and try the positions as they come up in your own games.
How do you bear off in our game?
You play the light checkers, and your home board is the bottom right quarter. Once all fifteen are home, press Roll dice and tap a checker. If it can come off, the tray on the right of the board lights up. Tap the tray, or drag the checker onto it.
If a checker can come off by using both dice, the tray lights up for that too, and one tap makes both moves. Undo takes back anything you’ve moved until you press Done, so you can try a play and look at what it leaves. Hint shows its suggestion in the same notation players use: 6/off 4/2 means one checker bears off from the 6-point and another moves from the 4-point to the 2-point.
Why is bearing off dangerous?
It’s only dangerous while your opponent still has checkers in your home board. They might be holding an anchor there, or have a checker that was hit late in the game. A blot you leave can be hit, and a hit checker goes back to the bar. From there it needs 25 pips to bear off, which is usually enough to lose the race. Your opponent’s home board may also be strong by now, so your checker could spend several turns on the bar before it even gets back in.
So the question every turn is not “how many can I take off?” but “what does this leave behind?”
Which checkers should you move first?
Dark is waiting on your 1-point. Any blot you leave in front of it can be hit.
You roll 6-2. It’s tempting to take two checkers off with 6/off 2/off. But that leaves a single checker on your 2-point, one pip in front of Dark’s anchor. Any roll with a 1 hits it: 11 of the 36 rolls. The other greedy play, 6/off 6/4, leaves a blot on the 6-point, five pips away, and 11 rolls hit that too.
The safe play is 6/off 4/2, or 6/off 5/3. Each takes one checker off and leaves no blots at all: 0 rolls hit. Hint suggests 6/off 4/2.
You roll 5-3. Taking two off with 5/off 3/off leaves a blot on the 3-point: 11 rolls hit. Instead, play 5/off 6/3. The checker from the 6-point lands safely on the 3-point, nothing is left alone, and 0 rolls hit. Hint agrees.
The idea in both rolls is the same. Work from the back. Your highest points are the ones you have to clear first, so use spare numbers to bring those checkers down rather than to empty a low point and leave a straggler behind.
Should you always bear off a checker when you can?
No. Look at the same position a few turns later.
You roll 4-3. You could take two off with 4/off 3/off, but that leaves a blot on the 4-point, and 11 rolls hit it. Hint goes for 6/2 6/3 instead. It takes nothing off this turn, but the 6-point is now clear, every point still has at least two checkers on it, and 0 rolls hit.
You roll 6-4. Taking two off with 6/off 4/off leaves blots on both the 6-point and the 4-point: 20 rolls hit. The safe play is 6/off 6/2, which bears one off and leaves 0 shots.
Giving up a checker this turn costs you a little in the race. Being hit costs you the game, or close to it.
What if there’s no safe play?
Sometimes the dice don’t let you play safe. In position 2, a roll of 6-5 has only one legal play: 6/off 5/off. That leaves single checkers on the 6-point and the 5-point, and 20 of Dark’s 36 rolls hit one of them.
Play it, then look at what you can control next turn. Once you’re down to a few checkers, a blot is often unavoidable. When you have a choice between blots, leave the one fewer of Dark’s rolls can hit. Our strategy guide has a table of how many rolls hit a blot at each distance.
How do you bear off once contact is over?
When your opponent has no checkers left behind yours, there’s nothing to hit and the game is a pure race. Now the aim changes: take off as many checkers as you can, as fast as you can. Check the pip counts at the top of the screen to see who’s ahead. Our post on counting pips explains what those numbers tell you.
You roll 2-1. Neither number matches a point with a checker on it, so it can look as if nothing comes off. But one checker can use both dice. Play 3/1 1/off: the checker on the 3-point moves 2 to the 1-point, then bears off with the 1. In the game, tap that checker and the tray lights up.
That’s the only play that takes a checker off. We worked out, over every possible roll from here, how many more turns each play needs on average. After 3/1 1/off you need about 2.63 turns to finish. After the best play that takes nothing off, you need about 2.74. Small, but races are often decided by less.
Questions
- Do you have to bear off a checker if you can?
- No. You can always make a legal move inside your home board instead, as long as you use as much of your roll as the rules require. Sometimes that's the safest play.
- Can you bear off with a higher number than you need?
- Yes, but only from your highest point. If you roll a 6 and your highest checker is on the 4-point, you bear that checker off. If you have a checker on a point higher than the number rolled, you have to move a checker instead.
- What happens if a checker is hit while you're bearing off?
- It goes to the bar, enters through your opponent's home board and has to travel all the way back. You can't bear off again until it's home. Checkers you have already borne off stay off.
What habits should you practise?
- Look at what you leave, not what you take off. While your opponent still has checkers in your home board, check every play for blots before you press Done.
- Clear from the back. Empty your highest points first and keep low points filled.
- Use Undo to compare. Try the greedy play, look at the blots, then undo it and try the safe one.
- Check your play against Hint in contact positions, and ask yourself why it chose what it did.
- Switch modes when contact ends. As soon as nothing can be hit, take off as many checkers as you can each turn, using both dice on one checker if that’s what gets it off.