Hypergammon

Hypergammon

A short-form Backgammon variant using only 3 pieces per side, placed on the last three points of the home board. Games are dramatically faster than standard Backgammon — often finishing in under 15 minutes — while retaining the full rules including hitting, the bar, and bearing off. Hypergammon is fully solved computationally: perfect play has been calculated for all positions. Used in speed tournaments and for teaching probability concepts.

### Components

Setup

Each player places 3 checkers on their final three home board points:

• 1 checker on the 1-point
• 1 checker on the 2-point
• 1 checker on the 3-point

These pieces are already in the home board but must be borne off in the usual way — they cannot simply be removed immediately; each die must allow the bear-off.

Rules

All standard Backgammon rules apply:

• Roll two dice each turn and move pieces forward.
• Hitting a blot sends it to the bar; must re-enter in opponent’s home board before any other move.
• Doubles give four moves.
• Doubling cube may be used (optional in casual play).

Bearing Off

Since all pieces start in the home board, bearing off begins immediately. Roll and remove a piece from the matching point. If no piece is on the rolled point, move a piece from a higher point toward a lower point, or bear off from the highest occupied point when a higher number is rolled.

Strategic Note

With only 3 pieces, single games are heavily influenced by dice, but across a match the skill gap is significant. The key decision points are when to hit, when to run, and when to double.

Winning

First player to bear off all 3 pieces wins. Gammon and backgammon scores apply as in standard play.

Attribution

Hypergammon. Modern tournament variant, origin unknown (popularised in the 1990s). Public domain rules. Source: Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA).