Hyper backgammon
The same short backgammon with three checkers each. A game takes minutes, and cube decisions become the main content of play.
Rules in short
- Three checkers per player instead of fifteen
- Movement and hitting work exactly as in short backgammon
- Matches are many times shorter — a whole series fits into an evening
- The doubling cube matters more than the position
Why three checkers change everything
With three checkers there are no primes and no deep positional play: almost every position is a race with contact, where a single hit turns the game around. The cube therefore behaves nothing like it does in short backgammon — the right moment to double arrives and passes within a move or two, and a late pass costs the whole game.
Hyper is also honest about your mistakes: in short backgammon a weak move hides behind the next twenty, while here the game ends before you forget it.
156 games of hyper have been played on BG Space — the rarest variant here, and a table is usually created for a specific opponent.