The Best Backgammon Board Games

In the 1970's, it was estimated that nearly every American household owned a copy of the common backgammon board. Over the years, backgammon has remained a consistently popular game around the world. Yet who could have imagined that people would one day be able to play their favorite board game online?

Internet backgammon has helped bring the game to a brand new audience and has rekindled the interest of older backgammon fans. Even if you belong to one of the generations that didn't grow up with a computer in the living room, learning how to play backgammon online is fun and simple to master. One of the many advantages to playing online is that you don't even need to remember the backgammon setup. The computer does it all for you, leaving you to get on with playing and winning.

As the backgammon game has evolved online, so too has its audience and the variations they can find to play. Backgammon fans come from all age groups and backgrounds. Some are fans of backgammon gambling and so prefer to play standard versions of the game at pay for money sites, and to compete against other players in online tournaments.

Others however, prefer to play the game purely for fun and so play several different variations of backgammon that have found their way online in the last few years. Among these are Turkish backgammon, or Tawula, and American and European versions of Acey-Deucey. Both of these games have been popular for decades but today offer online gaming fans greater challenges and a new spin on the standard backgammon game. These and other backgammon versions are growing more and more in popularity as a result and are especially fun if you're already familiar with the game and want to test your skills under different rules. For example, instead of starting with 15 checkers on the board, you start with just two checkers playing Tawula. You have to roll the die to bring your other 13 checkers onto the board before you move your other checkers. In this way, backgammon is given a new twist to hold players' attention.

If you've never played backgammon on the internet before and the idea of trying out board games online looks appealing, you can access a range of free sites to bring your gaming skills up to date. Free backgammon games are available all over the internet and can teach you the basics on how to play in no time. They are also useful training grounds for testing out new theories and strategies and for building up your confidence levels.

Some gaming sites even offer backgammon software which you can download for free and instal on your PC. Once you have this software, you can play it any time as much as you like to prepare you for live friendly games or for money games.

You can also make contact with thousands of fellow backgammon fans by visiting backgammon forum sites. These sites are a wonderful source of information and allow you to post questions, access the latest industry news, learn about new online sites and tournaments and share your backgammon experiences with like-minded people.

Gene Marshall, skilled backgammon player, writes for a few different well-known backgammon publications. The writer contributes articles about backgammon online and free backgammon. Further material and articles published by Gene Marshall about backgammon can be accessed on the net.