Playing the Backgammon's Tapa
In Macedonia, Greece, and Bulgaria, they call their backgammon as Tapa. It's also called as Plakoto. Either way, backgammon or Tapa to them is "bottle cap". Tapa is usually third among the usual trilogy game, the first being Tabla (which is more like the backgammon), and the second being the Gul Bara. The trilogy is commonly played consecutively in 5 matches, with all three games played on the standard backgammon game board. You can't use a doubling cube in Tapa. Other than that, there are minor differences of rules and scoring. The following are those utilized in Macedonia.
The Rules
With fifteen checkers each, both players place them on the 24th point. Usually, players add 2 players when the game commences and just add more checkers later on the game. The player who won the Gul Bara makes the first turn of the Tapa.
At the starting position, the two players' goal is to race in opposite direction. The main objective of the game is to get all your checkers to the home board and get (or bear) them off. The first player to do so would be the winner.
The Movement
Players must move their checker according to the number of the dice rolled. Take note that each die must amount to a separate move. So if you happen to roll a 6 and 4, you should only move one checker for 6 points and another for four. You can, however, add them up to 10 if you have a point that isn't blocked by an opponent.
In case of a double, the player can use a die two times. For instance, in rolling a 4 and 4, you can move 4 checkers four spaces each.
The Pin
You can't hit in the Tapa the way you can on common backgammon games. But you can pin or trap your opponent by placing your checker on top of another. A pinned checker wouldn't be able to move until the checker above it is removed. When one or two checkers are used to pin an opponent, this creates an anchor, wherein you have blocked a point where your opponent cannot touch down.
There's a great advantage in every pin, especially when you get to pin a checker on a smaller point. The luckiest pin you can achieve is to trap your opponent on the 1st point. If you do this with your checkers all out of the 24th point, you get an automatic win. More than that, you get a "mars" or 2 match points.
Bearing off
When all your 15 checkers reach your home board, it's time to take them off. To bear off, the numbers of the rolled dice should correspond to the point where the checker is.
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