Backgammon Books

Backgammon Books and Resources

A lot of people want to know what backgammon books to read, where to get them, and where to play backgammon online. Here are my suggestions.

Playing Online Backgammon

I do not really play much backgammon anymore. The site where I played the most, the MSN Gaming Zone, does not exist anymore. However, I think that backgammon is a terrific game to play online. With the multiple servers online, you can find almost any kind of game you want. You can also play against friends no matter where they live. This site has a page devoted to places to play backgammon.

There are three places I play backgammon online.

Gammone Empire is one of the leading sites in money play games. This site is, as you might guess, set up for money play. (GamesGrid has money play also.) It has some backgammon tournaments. You specify what you want to play for (how much per point, match length and how many points the match will be played for) and wait for someone else to sit down. It's easy to get a low-stakes money game. On this site you can make an initial deposit as low as $5 and start playing for real money. It has a great interface that enables gambling on games as a third party. Alternatively, you can use your skills to play an opponent and gamble on your own game skills.

Microsoft's Internet Gaming Zone is free and very social. There are tournaments around the clock. The software is automatically installed when you navigate to the site. There is a rating system, but it's hopelessly broken. The main benefit of this site is that the interface is very social and a lot of the players are very friendly. You can also play lots of other games, like spades, cribbage, bridge, and many others. Some of the areas do have a fee, but backgammon and most other games are free. I give lessons on the Zone at 5:00 PM Pacifi on Tuesday nights in Tournament Room 25.

I also play on GamesGrid. GamesGrid has much better software and much much better players. I don't find it quite as social, though, and while there are still a lot of tournaments, there are fewer and with less variety than the Zone. I have a comparison of the MSN Zone, GamesGrid and ClubGames if you're interested in comparing the two sites. GamesGrid has a membership fee, but some services are open to guest accounts - including the lessons and watching the best players in the world! I teach on GamesGrid at 5:45PM Pacific on Thursday nights.

My recommended source for strong backgammon tournaments is warpgammon. Warpgammon is not a backgammon server, but a sponsor of backgammon tournaments that can be played wherever the two players agree.

Backgammon Books and Other Instructional Material

Everyone coming to this site has a desire to improve their backgammon. The best two ways to do that are by reading books and practicing against computer backgammon programs. There is a separate link on this site for programs. The following is a list of books I recommend. You can click on the link to order them directly from Amazon.com.

For beginning Backgammon players:

Backgammon For Winners– Bill Robertie. (Price: $7.96) This is a book for beginners, which probably means anyone on the Zone with a rating under about 1600. I haven’t read it personally. This book takes you from the stage of “Try to hop my checkers home safely and don’t worry about the doubling cube until I’m doubled” to the next stage of thinking intelligently about the game.

For intermediate Backgammon players:

Backgammon for Serious Players – Bill Robertie. (Price: $11.96) Book for intermediate players. Bill Robertie, by the way, is one of only two players to have won the world championship twice. Again I have not read this. Some players love it, some hate it. From what I’m told, this is a good alternative to Magriel’s book if you don’t want to spend a lot of money.

Backgammon – Paul Magriel. (Price $52.00) This is the classic, the unformly-recommended text for all players. I own two copies, one an original autogrpahed by the author (sorry, it’s not for sale!). It is about 400 pages long and covers every facet of the game. Unless you are already a tournament-calibre player, you really can’t go wrong with this.

For advanced Backgammon players:

These books are not for the faint of heart, but they are all very understandable without a Ph.D. in backgammon. If you aspire to be a top-notch backgammon player, you really must understand all the concepts in these books.

Advanced Backgammon – Volume 1 (Positional play) – Bill Robertie (Price $40.00)
Advanced Backgammon – Volume 2 (Technical play) – Bill Robertie (Price $40.00)

These books are excellent. Each contains about 180 positions illustrating virtually all facets of the game. They include rules for how to play certain positions, doubling formulas for races, and such important concepts as the “addition principle.” I keep one volume in my car, to read when I go out for lunch, and one at home. My goal is to memorize every position in both books and know the rules for how to play them. They are remarkable easy to read and an absolute must for the advanced player.

How To Play Tournament Backgammon – Kit Woolsey ($20.00). This is a technical work, and is extremely relevant to play online. Its focus is not on the world of real-life tournaments, like how to size up your opponents, mental preparation, etc. Rather, it is mostly about the effective use of the doubling cube. Remember that most backgammon in the real world is played for money, one game at a time. For many money (and social) players, the idea of playing a match to a certain number of points is a different concept. It is not an easy book to read, but it will make a huge difference in your results in playing matches. Kit Woolsey is one of the top players in the world, and possibly THE top theorist on the game, as well as being a world champion in bridge.

New Ideas In Backgammon – Kit Woolsey and Hal Heinrich. (Price $40.00) This is a book of 104 difficult checker play problems, carefully analyzed, giving obviously not only the solution but the way to view the position. I would recommend Robertie’s Advanced Backgammon first, but this is an excellent book.

Winning With The Doubling Cube – Peter Bell (Price about $35.00). Right now this isn’t available at Amazon, but write me and I’ll figure out where you can get a copy. This is an excellent book that covers all the essentials of the doubling cube. If you understand everything about the cube on my website and in both Wooley’s and Robertie’s books above, you might not need this. I didn’t learn very much from it, unfortunately. (Maybe I’ll sell you my copy cheap!) But if you’re having trouble making sense of everything else, this is an excellent all-in-one tutorial.

An excellent backgammon magazine was Inside Backgammon. I say "was" because it is no longer published, although back issues are still available, and are more than worth reading. However, its place has been taken by GammOnLine, Kit Woolsey's new online backgammon magazine. This includes a monthly column called Practical Backgammon, for beginning and intermediate players. Click on the link for a sample issue and for subscription information.

If you are looking for more titles, backgammon sets, or software, write to Carol Joy Cole. Carol has a good selection, and gives great, prompt service. Unfortunately, she does not have an online catalog, nor does she accept credit cards. I think she's working on both of these, though.

Game of Bridge Links

I'm also a bridge player - I love that game. Many people say "I don't know how to play bridge, but I'd love to learn." There are some introductory lessons available from The Bridge World. The magazine itself (called The Bridge World) is rather high-level and not of much use to beginners, but the introductory lessons are great.

You can also check out the web page of the The American Contract Bridge League. The ACBL coordinates almost all duplicate bridge in the United States. If you're looking for a place to take lessons, or a club to play at, the ACBL can almost surely help.

I consider the best bridge site to be Bridge Base Online. BBO was started by Fred Gittleman, who is a world-class player in his own right, but also a top-notch programmer. What is great about BBO is that it started out, and remains, a site devoted to bridge players rather than making money. There are lots of free tournaments, and you can play in ACBL-sanctioned tournaments that award masterpoints for $1.00. One of the best features of BBO is online VuGraph.
These are online broadcasts, with expert commentary, of some of the world's top events. They usually have the late rounds of the major U.S. team championships, the world championships, U.S. team trials, and Cavendish pairs. If you like bridge, you can appreciate the drama of watching these events real-time.

Our recommeneded backgammon software: 1-dec 2004 was a day that changed the world of online backgammon forever: two new backgammon software were released - GammonEmpire (also known as Gammon Empire) and Play65 (also known as Play 65). These two software became extremely popular with backgammon players from all levels, and usually you can find few good thousands of players in each, at any given time.

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