Acey-Deucey

Acey-Deucey

A variant of Backgammon with roots in the United States military, popular in the Navy and Marines from the early 20th century. Acey-Deucey starts with all pieces off the board; each piece must enter individually. The defining rule is that rolling a 1-2 (acey-deucey) rewards the roller with any doublet of their choice played for free, plus an additional roll.

### Components

Setup

All pieces begin off the board. Players must enter all pieces before they can move them around the board. Unlike standard Backgammon, no pieces start on the board.

Entry

On each turn, roll both dice. You must use the numbers rolled to enter pieces from off the board into the opponent’s home board (points 19–24 from your perspective). You may enter one piece per die if both numbers are open, or one piece if only one is open. You cannot make any other move until all your pieces have entered.

If neither number allows entry (both points blocked), your turn is lost.

Movement

Once a piece has entered, it moves around the board in standard fashion toward your home board (points 1–6). Hitting blots is allowed — hit pieces return to off-board and must re-enter.

Acey-Deucey Roll

If you roll a 1 and a 2:

1. Play the 1-2 normally (move one piece 1, another piece 2, or one piece 3).
2. Announce any doublet (1-1 through 6-6) and play four moves of that number.
3. Take an additional roll and play it normally.

If any part of the acey-deucey bonus cannot be played, the unplayable portion is forfeited.

Doublets

Doublets are played as four moves (as in standard Backgammon). Doublets do not grant an extra roll (only the acey-deucey roll does).

Bearing Off

Once all 15 of your pieces are in your home board, bear off normally.

Winning

First player to bear off all 15 pieces wins.

Attribution

Acey-Deucey. US military tradition, early 20th century. Public domain. Source: Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA).