1. Backgammon is played on a rectangular board with 12 narrow triangles on both long sides of the rectangle. Traditionally triangles alternate in colour and are grouped into quadrants of 6.

2. Backgammon requires 2 dice.

3. Each player should select 15 BEADs the colour of their choice.

4. BEADs are placed on the board to start; on the row closest to the player, 5 BEADs on a player's far left, and 2 on the players far right. On the row opposite the player, counting from the left, 3 BEADs on the 5th triangle and 5 BEADs on the 7th triangle.

5. Players decide who begins the game by rolling a die.

1. In turns, each player rolls both dice and moves their BEADs counter-clockwise around the board. Each dice can be used on a different BEAD, but the full roll must be used.

2. If a player rolls a double, they can move up to 4 BEADs.

3. A player must always move if legally possible.

4. A BEAD can be moved to any open triangle or a triangle that is already occupied by the player's BEAD.

5. A player can capture their opponent’s BEAD if they land on a triangle occupied by a single BEAD of their opponent.

6. A player cannot move any BEAD until a captured BEAD is back on the board. These BEADs can only enter the board by landing on a triangle that is empty of their opponent’s BEADs starting from the far-right corner of the board (opposite the player).

7. BEADs exit the board from the player's right quadrant on the side of the board closest to the player.

8. All BEADs must be in the in the player’s final quadrant before they can be moved off the board. If a BEAD is captured, it must re-enter the final quadrant before any more BEADs can be removed.

To win the game, a player needs to clear all their BEADs off the board.

1. Backgammon is one of the oldest games in existence, alongside Go and Chess. It is probably about 5,000 years old and may well have originated in what today is Iraq previously Mesopotamia.

2. The Emperor Claudius was a keen player, he had a special board built on the back of his chariot to relieve the tedium of long journeys. Emperor Nero was a prodigious gambler. He played for today's equivalent of $10,000 a game. History has not recorded what happened to his opponents if they lost!

3. The word backgammon first appeared in print in 1645. No one knows for sure where the name came from, but most scholars agree that in all likelihood it comes from the Middle English baec = back and gamen = game.