Backgammon

Backgammon is the oldest board game still widely played, and this is it with
nothing in the way. There is no download, no account, and no setup for a local
game. Open it, throw for the start, and play.

Play whichever way suits the moment. Challenge the computer at Easy, Medium, or
Hard. Hand your phone or laptop across the table for pass and play. Or create a
private online game and send a friend the code, and you are playing as soon as
they join. Any game can carry a clock, from a one minute bullet game to a
fifteen minute one with increments, or no clock at all when you would rather
take your time.

The rules are enforced properly, including the ones that catch people out. You
must use as many dice as you can, and if only one of two can be played it has to
be the larger, so the board will never offer you a move that strands a die. Pick
up a checker and a ring is drawn exactly where it would come to rest. The
doubling cube is there when you want it and off when you do not, because a great
many people learned backgammon without one.

Online, neither player throws the dice. Each roll is agreed between the two
browsers before it lands, so nobody can choose their own numbers. Games against
the computer and in pass and play are saved as you go, down to the roll sitting
on the table, and any finished game can be replayed turn by turn and taken away
as a transcript.