Plakoto, a variant of Backgammon, is a popular game in Greece. The motive behind playing Plakoto is to get all your checkers to your own board and then remove them. The player who removes all the tiles from him first wins the game. This game is usually played in conjunction with the other two backgammon variants namely Fevga and Portes. Together these three games are called Tavli and are played in sequence, usually one after the other. They have games of three, five or seven points. A Bulgarian version of Plakoto is known as Tapa.
Each player has fifteen tiles to start with. These checkers are placed on the opponent’s point one. Players have to move their pieces in different directions on the Plakato board. At the start of the game, each player rolls one die and the player with the highest roll gets a chance to start. Unlike
Backgammon the player has to roll the dice again to start his first turn. A player who has won a game starts the next game. The number of points, or pips, or places a player can move their checkers is decided by the roll of the dice.
In the Plakoto online backgammon game, a tile can only be placed on an open spot. An open point is one that is not occupied by two or more of the opponent’s checkers. The numbers that appear after rolling the two dice make separate moves, for example, if a player rolls 4 and 2, he can move one tile four spaces to an open point and one tile plus two spaces to an open point. A player also has the option of moving a single checker a total of six spaces to an open spot. The precondition for this unique move is that the intermediate points (four or two spaces from the starting point) must also be open.
Doubles in Plakoto are played twice. For example, a roll of 3-3 means the player can use all three four times. If possible, the player should use both the numbers from one roll and all four numbers in case he rolls a double on the dice roll.
Hitting is not allowed in the Plakoto online backgammon game. Instead, if a player lands on a spot occupied by an opponent’s only checker, the opponent cannot move his checker unless the player moves his checker. In other words, the opponent’s checker is trapped. A blockade is created by two of a player’s checkers meeting on a point or one of his checkers pinning the opponent’s checker.
The mother tile is the last tile on a player’s starting point. It is very important to win a game of Plakoto backgammon online. If the mother tile is caught by the opponent’s tile before he has left the starting point, the game ends and two points are lost. This particular rule has an exception if the opponent has their own mother tile at the starting point. A game in which both players’ mother tile is pinned results in a tie.
The Plakoto online backgammon game begins after a player has moved all of their fifteen checkers on their home board. A player can draw a number that corresponds to the spot on which the tile is placed. If there is no checker on the spot indicated by the roll, then the player must make a legal move using a checker on a spot with a higher number. If there are no tiles on the higher numbered spots, the player must remove a tile from the highest spot that has a tile. In this way he can remove all his checkers from the board.
The first player to remove all fifteen of their chips is declared the winner of the game. If the losing player has successfully drawn at least one tile, he loses only one point; otherwise two points are lost.
