Backgammon Shortcut: Pip Counts of Pairs

Most people wouldn't consider counting pips as a necessary skill in playing online backgammon. And they wouldn't be wrong too since automatic counts are already provided. But it's an essential know-how when it comes to playing live games, mainly, live tournaments. What's helpful about re-learning pip counting, or even learning them for the first time, is that there's a backgammon shortcut of how to calculate them in your head. One of these shortcuts includes pip counts of pairs.

Backgammon pip counts are the number of pips (the spaces represented by board points) that checkers have to cover to get off the board. That means a lone checker on any point has a pip count equal to that point. For example, a checker on the five-point has a pip count of five.

What's consistent about pip counts of pairs is that they're only twice the amount of the point that they're on. In other words, two checkers on the six-point has a pip count of 12. The tricky part is when there's more than one pair on the board. Here's where the backgammon shortcut serves its purpose well.

One backgammon shortcut to determine pip counts of pairs is when they're a point away from each other, a.k.a. split pair. The shortcut in figuring out a split pair's pip count is determining the center point and multiplying that by four.

Let's say, you have a split pair on the three and five-points. With the backgammon shortcut, you can quickly determine that your pip count's 16. That's four (since the center's the four-point) multiplied by four.

If we were to use the long form to get that pip count, we'd be multiplying three by two and multiplying five by two then adding their products. That's why shortcuts to pip counts were developed, to get a total in your head right away.

Another backgammon shortcut to pip counts of pairs is for a pair each on the bar-point and mid-point. What's important here is remembering that a piece each on the mid and bar-points always total 20.

This shortcut relies on just looking at the board and recognizing these distinct points promptly. Consequently, we don't have to add seven (the bar-point) and 13 (the mid-point) to arrive at that conclusion. Therefore, pairs on both these points have a pip count of 40, that's 20 multiplied by two.

A player's skill in counting pips draws the line on who can play well online and who thrives on playing live. Nevertheless, learning how to count pips quickly can be re-learned (and learned for the first time) by using shortcuts. These shortcuts to pip counts of pairs include those for a split pair as well as mid-point with bar-point pairs as well. The backgammon shortcut for the former is simply taking the center point and multiplying it by four. And the shortcut for the latter is only 20 (mid-point and bar-point total) times two, or just 40.