Anatomy of the Nardi Board: Home, Yard and Bar

The nardi board looks simple: twenty-four long triangles, a strip down the middle and thirty checkers. But every part has a name and a job, and a player who knows them learns the rules and counts moves faster. Below we take the nardi board apart: the quarters, home and yard, the bar, the point numbers and the starting setup, all as short Georgian nardi (the close cousin of backgammon) is played on tamashebi.cc.

The structure: 24 points, 4 quarters

A nardi board has twenty-four points, twelve along the top edge and twelve along the bottom. A point is the triangle the checkers stand on. Any number of checkers may stand on one point, but only of one colour. Between the top and bottom rows runs a free band where the dice land. A vertical strip, the bar, splits the board down the middle, so each row falls into two groups of six. That gives four quarters of six points each:

• Your home (sakhli in Georgian): one of the quarters on your side, six points where you must bring every checker and from which you bear them off. On tamashebi.cc it is always the bottom-right quarter.
• Your yard (ezo, the outer board): the other quarter on your side, across the bar. It is the last stretch before home.
• Your opponent's yard: on their side, facing yours.
• Your opponent's home: on their side, facing your home. Your two back checkers start here, and a hit checker of yours comes back into play here from the bar.

The players move towards each other. Your checkers start in your opponent's home, pass through their yard and your yard, and finish in your home; your opponent's checkers travel the same road the other way. On the site, where your home is the bottom-right corner, your route looks like this: from the top-right corner leftwards along the top row, down into the bottom-left quarter and rightwards along the bottom row to your home. The circuit runs anticlockwise.

Closed points and blots

Two or more checkers of one colour close a point: the opponent cannot land or enter on it, though they may jump over it. A single checker is a blot: if an opposing checker lands on it, it is hit. So every point is always in one of four states: empty, closed by you, holding your blot, or your opponent's. Reading a position starts here.

Home and yard: why the names matter

Home and yard are not just labels: several main rules of Georgian nardi are tied directly to them.

1. Bearing off starts only when every checker you still have on the board is in your home and none is on the bar. One checker left in the yard and you cannot bear off yet.
2. A checker on the bar enters into your opponent's home. The more points they have closed there, the harder it is for you to get back in.
3. Koks, the three-point win, depends on the winner's home: if the loser has borne off nothing and still has a checker on the bar or in the winner's home, it is koks. A checker in the winner's yard only makes it mars (two points).
4. tamashebi.cc plays a Georgian house rule: if your checker hits an opposing checker inside your own home, it stays on that point for the rest of the turn (unless there is no other way to play your dice). A hit in the yard carries no such hold.

Your 7 and 8 points are the bridge into home, and closed points there block your opponent's back checkers. Six closed points in a row form a full prime: a checker stuck behind it cannot pass until you break it.

The six home points are not equal

The 6 point is yours from the start, with five checkers on it. The most valuable point to close is the 5 point: it hampers your opponent's back checkers most and makes entering from the bar harder. Then come the 4 and the 3. The 1 and 2 points do almost nothing early on: a checker sent there is practically out of play. At the end, though, when you are avoiding mars, those deep points help you bear off quickly.

The bar

The bar, the strip down the middle, divides the board into halves and is where a hit checker waits. While you have a checker on the bar you cannot move any other: first you must enter it (gatsotskhleba, literally "bringing back to life") into your opponent's home.

The die decides where it enters, and this is where numbering pays off. In your own numbers, yaki (1) enters on point 24, du (2) on point 23 and so on, down to shashi (6) on point 19. Put another way, a checker coming off the bar lands on the point whose number is 25 minus the die. It works the same way for your opponent, mirrored: their checker enters into your home, and the die is simply your point number, so a checker entering with panji (5) lands on your 5 point. A checker cannot enter on a closed point; if a blot stands there, it is hit on entry.

Counted from the bar, a checker is 25 pips from bearing off, so every hit raises your pip count by however far the hit checker had travelled.

How the points are numbered

When nardi is explained, the points are always numbered from the side of the player being discussed. Points 1 to 6 are your home (1 is the point nearest the edge of the board), 7 to 12 your yard, 13 to 18 your opponent's yard and 19 to 24 their home. Your opponent has their own numbers, running the other way: your 24 point is their 1 point, your 13 is their 12. Every point therefore has two numbers, one for each player, and the two always add up to 25.

Why we count from 24 down to 1

The number is exactly how many pips a checker on that point needs to leave the board: eight from point 8, twenty-four from point 24. Counting a move is plain subtraction: panji (5) takes a checker from 13 to 8, se (3) from 8 to 5. When bearing off, the numbering becomes the rule: a die bears off from the point with the same number, chari (4) from the 4 point. The number and the distance left are the same figure.

The starting setup: 167 pips

In short nardi the checkers start spread over four points. Your fifteen stand like this, and your opponent's mirror them:

• Two checkers on point 24, in the far corner of your opponent's home. These are your back checkers: 2 × 24 = 48 pips.
• Five checkers on point 13, at the start of your opponent's yard: 5 × 13 = 65 pips.
• Three checkers on point 8, in your yard: 3 × 8 = 24 pips.
• Five checkers on point 6, in your home: 5 × 6 = 30 pips.

Add them up: 48 + 65 + 24 + 30 = 167, the pip count both players start with. On tamashebi.cc it is shown on each player's plate and changes with every move. Run a back checker from 24 to 13 on a 6-5 and your count drops to 167 − 11 = 156; if a blot of yours is hit later, it counts 25 from the bar and your total rises again. Comparing the two numbers shows who leads the race.

How to read a position

An experienced player asks four questions before moving:

1. How many points have I closed in my home? The more there are, the riskier it is for my opponent to be hit, because their checker may not get back in from the bar.
2. Where are my blots, and how far are they from my opponent's checkers? A blot within six pips can be hit directly; one further away only by a combination of both dice.
3. Who is ahead in the pip count? If I am well ahead, I avoid contact; if I am behind, I need it.
4. Where are my back checkers? If both are still in my opponent's home, getting them out will soon become a problem.

An example: you have closed your 6, 5 and 4 points, one of your opponent's checkers is on the bar, and the pip counts are 98 to 104 in your favour. With three points closed, their checker fails to enter on 9 rolls out of 36, but if you have a blot on your 3 point, any se (3) they roll hits it on the way in. So the right move is plain to see: close the 3 point, or get the blot off it.

What the board looks like on tamashebi.cc

• The board is always drawn from your side: home at the bottom right, back checkers at the top right, whichever colour you play.
• The dice land in the band between the two rows. On a double you see two dice with a small figure beside them: how many of the four moves are left.
• Borne-off checkers collect in a separate tray with fifteen slots, each checker standing on its edge. When a checker can be borne off, your tray lights up as a place to move to.
• On a phone the board lies sideways and fills the full height of the screen.

Frequently asked questions

How many points are on a nardi board?

Twenty-four, twelve along the top and twelve along the bottom. The bar is not a point: it is where hit checkers wait.

Where is my home on the screen?

On tamashebi.cc, always the bottom-right quarter: the board is drawn from your side, whichever colour you play.

What does 167 mean?

It is the total number of pips all checkers must travel in the starting position: 2 × 24 + 5 × 13 + 3 × 8 + 5 × 6. The site shows it as each player's pip count.

Are my yard and my opponent's yard the same thing?

No. Each side has its own: your yard is the last stretch before your home (points 7–12), your opponent's yard lies in front of their home (13–18 in your numbers).

How many checkers can be on the bar?

As many as have been hit: there is no limit. But until you have entered all of them, you cannot move any other checker.

• Play nardi online
• Georgian nardi rules, step by step
• Bearing off in nardi
• Multi-point nardi matches
• Playing nardi on a phone

Nardi on tamashebi.cc is free to play. Some tables use Domino Coin, a virtual in-game coin: it is never money, cannot be bought or cashed out, and means nothing outside the site. The game is for fun and for skill.