Daily Backgammon

One deterministic game for each date

Daily Backgammon turns the selected calendar date into a stable seed. That seed controls the opening roll and every later pair of dice. The computer also resolves tied legal evaluations deterministically. Reopening the same date therefore restores the same underlying game identity. This gives the Daily a puzzle-like quality without pretending the dice are predetermined in ordinary over-the-board backgammon.

The Daily uses the same full rules engine as Practice

Nothing is simplified for the Daily. A checker on the bar must re-enter before any other checker can move. Points occupied by two or more opposing checkers are closed. A single opposing checker can be hit. Doubles provide four moves. Bearing off begins only after all fifteen checkers reach the home board. The legal-move list is generated by the same complete turn-sequence search used in Practice and independent release verification.

Both dice are used whenever the board allows it

A common source of incorrect browser backgammon is validating one move at a time without checking the whole turn. Daily Backgammon does not do that. If some legal sequence can use both different dice, the first-move list is restricted to moves that still allow the maximum number of dice to be used. If only one of two different dice can be used, the higher die is required when it is playable. Doubles similarly require the maximum legal number of moves up to four.

The date can be replayed without changing its identity

The Previous and Next controls move through specialist Daily dates. A past date continues to map to the same opening and dice stream. If an autosave exists, the exact board position returns. If no save exists, the game begins again from the standard opening using that date’s deterministic sequence. The interface does not generate a hidden “fresh” Daily when you refresh a difficult position.

The opening roll remains standard

Each side rolls one opening die. Ties are rerolled. The higher die decides the side that moves first, and that side uses the two opening numbers for its first turn. The Daily records the same opening pair every time the date is opened. From the second turn onward, the date seed and turn index produce the normal two-die sequence.

Computer difficulty does not change the dice

Easy, Standard and Hard operate on the same public board and the same deterministic dice for a given date. Easy makes a simpler legal choice. Standard evaluates race distance, hits, made points and blots. Hard uses a stronger weighting of the same visible information. Changing difficulty can therefore change computer decisions, but it does not secretly improve its rolls or alter your rolls.

Daily completion builds a specialist-only streak

Finishing the selected date writes one entry to Backgammon’s browser-local Daily history. Consecutive completed dates increase the Backgammon specialist streak and best streak. A win is recorded separately from completion, so the streak represents showing up and finishing the game rather than only days where the player beats the computer.

Today’s 6 remains untouched

Daily Backgammon is not a thirteenth core Daily game and does not occupy one of the six main slots. Completion history stays inside Backgammon statistics. The main `days` state remains untouched, and the frozen 2026 Today’s 6 lineup hash remains part of cumulative QA. That separation prevents specialist growth from silently changing the platform’s established Daily contract.

Autosave is local and versioned

The save contains the board points, bar counts, borne-off counts, dice remaining, active player, turn index, game score, Clean or Assisted status and specialist mode identity. V0.96 reads forward from the V0.84 store and creates a new `dbp:v85` value while leaving the serialized older value unchanged. No account, cloud sync or remote database is required.

Hint keeps the game playable but marks it Assisted

Hint asks the strongest local evaluator for one legal first move from the current complete turn. The highlighted move is always drawn from the same rules-generated legal set shown to the player. Because a recommendation was provided, the Daily becomes Assisted. This lets a player study a difficult bar entry or bearing-off choice without recording the eventual result as an unaided Clean win.

Undo turn also has a visible trust boundary

Undo returns to the start of your previous turn, including rewinding the computer response that followed it. That is more useful for learning than a cosmetic one-checker reversal, but it also means you may have seen future dice or computer play. The game is therefore marked Assisted after Undo. Restart follows the same rule and replays the deterministic Daily from its original position.

The product excludes stakes and paid chance mechanics

Daily Backgammon is implemented as a browser-local strategy game. There are no chips, purchases, prizes, stakes, betting features or paid random mechanics. The V0.96 Race to 3 option outside the Daily is only a local match counter where each finished game is worth one point. The Daily itself is one game for the date.

Use Practice when you want another game immediately

The Daily is intentionally stable, so pressing refresh should not act as a reroll button. When you want a different checker race, open Practice Game and use Fresh to create another seed. Practice keeps the same legal rules and computer levels but has no date identity, while Race to 3 connects several deterministic games into a longer local session.