Backgammon for two players on one device
Sitting across a table with one phone between you? gammonchain has pass-and-play backgammon for two players on the same device: a phone, a tablet or a laptop. It is free, runs in the browser and needs no account for either of you.
How pass and play works
In the lobby, choose a match length and press two players, one device. Both seats appear on one screen, labelled player 1 and player 2, and whoever is on turn rolls and moves. The doubling cube, take and pass, and resignation offers all work as they do in any other match.
- Confirm and undo. By default a finished play waits for a second tap before it is sent, and undo takes checkers back until then. Handy when the other player is watching your hand.
- No clock. Local matches never run a clock, because passing a device back and forth is not a speed event.
- Unrated. Local matches never change anyone's rating.
Same phone, which way up?
By default the board does not turn round between turns. The idea is that you sit on opposite sides of the device and each read it from your own side, the way a real board works.
If you really are handing a phone back and forth, open settings and turn on turn the board between turns, so each player sees the board from their own side on their turn. You can also choose whether the home board is on the right or the left.
Still a real match
Local play is not a separate offline mode. The page opens a second connection with its own throwaway key and plays a real match on the server, so it uses the same provably fair dice and ends with the same signed record you can verify and download. That also means it needs a connection, and leaving the page ends the match.
More detail is in the playing guide.