Gul Bara is a backgammon variant. It is also called as ‘Rosespring Backgammon’ or ‘Crazy Narde’. The motive of the game is to move all of your checkers around the board and bear them off. The first player who bears off all his checkers wins the game. The game is popular in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and Macedonia.
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Both players roll one die and the higher number goes first. That player rolls the dice again to begin his turn. Every player starts with fifteen checkers on the rightmost point of the far side of the board, at diagonally opposite corners from each other. They both move in the same direction, counterclockwise, around the board.
The roll of the dice indicates how many points, or pips, the player can move his checkers. The following rules apply:
A checker can only move to an open point, which is not occupied by the opponent’s checker. The numbers on the two dice can be used by the player for either separate moves or he can add them together and use it for a single move. For example, if a player rolls 6 and 4, he may move one checker six spaces to an open point and another checker four spaces to an open point, or he may move the one checker a total of ten spaces to an open point, but only if the intermediate point (six or four spaces from the starting point) is also open.
A major difference between Gul Bara and other forms of backgammon is that there is no hitting in Gul Bara. One checker placed at a point controls it, and a checker from the opponent cannot be placed at that particular point.
An exceptional feature of Gul Bara is that doubles are very powerful. In Gul Bara when you roll the doubles, you play your roll in the normal way and then you play every succeeding doubles roll up to and including 6-6.
During the first three rolls of the game, doubles are played as in backgammon; each number is played twice. For example, a roll of 3-3 means you have four threes to use.The difference comes to the forefront when a player rolls doubles after the first three rolls. In this case the player not only plays the number he rolled four times, but he also plays each successive number four times. For example, if a player rolls 2-2, he can play four 2's, and then four 3's, and then four 4's, and then four 5's and then four 6’s. If at any point the player is unable to play all four numbers, he loses the remainder of his turn. It is not difficult to play consecutive doubles, when the game is still in its early stages. But according to Gul Bara rules it only takes one checker to block a point, so players block more points and as the game progresses playing all the doubles is often quite difficult.
Bearing off can start once a player has moved all of his fifteen checkers into his home board. A player can bear off a checker by rolling a number that corresponds to the point on which it resides, then removing the checker from the board. If no checker is present on the point indicated by the roll, the player must make a legal move using a checker positioned on a higher-numbered point. If no checkers are present higher-numbered points, the player must remove a checker from the highest point that has a checker.The first player who bears off all his checkers gets one point and is declared the winner.The player who wins gets two points if he bears off all his checkers before the loser has borne off any.
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