Backgammon Dictionary

To shake a pair of dice in a dice cup and release them onto a backgammon board. If the dice are cocked, they must be rethrown.

Bear off.

The average number of rolls or pips (2) that can be played without having to make a major concession, such as leaving a blot, breaking a key point, or burying a checker. See post by Marty Storer.

A feature of digital chess clocks which gives each player a specified number of seconds at the start of each turn before that player's clock begins running. Typical time delays in backgammon range from 8 to 15 seconds per move. The idea is that players are charged only for "thinking time" and not for the time required to roll the dice, wait for them to settle, read the numbers and move the checkers.

How long you expect to retain the desirable features of a position compared to your opponent. Good timing means your opponent will be forced to make a major concession, such as leaving a blot, breaking a key point, or burying a checker, before you. You can sometimes help preserve your timing by killing large numbers or recirculating checkers.

Too many points.

A position which you should not double, even though your opponent has a clear drop, because your equity is higher by playing on for a gammon.

An inflexible position with many made points and few spare checkers. Seven is usually "too many."

To temporarily land on an intermediate open point after playing one of two numbers with the same checker.

An rule rarely used today in Western backgammon, though it is common in the Middle East. The rule requires that once you touch a checker (other than to adjust it) you must move that checker, and once you remove your hand from a properly played checker, that checker must remain where it was played. See this thread and this thread.

A formal competition among multiple entrants in which a winner is decided.

The person who organizes and oversees a tournament.

A game popular in seventeenth-century France in which players have just three checkers each and play only on their own side of the board.  See: How to Play Tourne-case.

The player who is behind in a match or behind in the race (2).  Compare: Leader.

Reaching the same position by different means.

A deliberate attempt to squeeze the opponent off of his anchor so that the trapper can close out any blots thereby exposed and win a gammon.

Traditional name for the three-point.

Playing a position out to the end of the game once (or to the point of truncation). A rollout consists of multiple trials, the results of which are averaged together to yield an estimate of the equity of the position.

Another name for the effective pip count, a concept developed by Walter Trice who wrote extensively about it.

[Named for Walter Trice.]  The ideal position to aim for during bear-in, consisting of: 7 checkers on your six-point, 5 checkers on your five-point, and 3 checkers on your four-point. It has the lowest wastage of any position with all 15 checkers still on the board.