Ruling — Backgammon

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

To setup the game, follow these steps: 1. Place the 30 men on the board as shown in diagram A [1]. 2. Place the doubling cube in the centre of the board, midway between the two players (it is often placed to one side) [1]. 3. If using a baffle box, place it on the nonhome board side [2]. 4. If using a clock, place it on the home board side [2].

[1] RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook · p.5 · Doubling Cube · starting and objective · starting Position · the objective of the Game

[2] RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook · p.2 · EQUIPMENT: SELECTION, SETUP AND CHANGE · ERRORS IN THE STARTING POSITION · VALID ROLLS

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 228 ms · ask 7678 ms · total 7917 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7917 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 5, "score": 0.032522, "snippet": "8 S o now we have our board, men and dice, how do we set up the board at the start of the game? The 30 men are placed on the board as shown in the diagram below, A , and the doubling cube is placed in the centre of the board midway between the two players (it is often placed to one side of the board", "headingPath": "Doubling Cube · starting and objective · starting Position · the objective of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 148}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031778, "snippet": "6 L earning the rules of backgammon may be difficult at first, but it is actually simple to understand and play . So, to begin, what do you need to play backgammon? Just four things. Backgammon is played on a board consisting of 24 narrow triangles called 'points'. The triangles alternate in colour ", "headingPath": "Backgammon History · the equipment · Backgammon Board · Men (Checkers) · Dice · Doubling Cube", "sharpsignalDocId": 148}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031754, "snippet": "Players must share two dice when using a clock; otherwise, they may share two dice or use four dice. Each player may choose to use either a dice cup or a baffle box. A baffle box must be placed on the nonhome board side. To mix dice, the requesting player rolls all four dice. Their opponent selects ", "headingPath": "EQUIPMENT: SELECTION, SETUP AND CHANGE · ERRORS IN THE STARTING POSITION · VALID ROLLS", "sharpsignalDocId": 149}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.031498, "snippet": "Matches must start, or resume following a scheduled suspension, at the designated time and take place in a designated playing area (non-smoking Preferred). Between games each player may call 5-minute breaks, limited in number to the match length divided by 6 (rounded down). Players may tend to emerg", "headingPath": "START OR RESUME TIMES AND BREAKS · EQUIPMENT: SELECTION, SETUP AND CHANGE", "sharpsignalDocId": 149}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "A player must move checkers clearly to a specific location, using one and the same hand throughout their turn (including hitting the clock), keep borne off checkers away from the playing surface, should announce the roll before repositioning dice, and must not touch any checkers during the opponent'", "headingPath": "CHECKER AND DICE HANDLING · END OF TURN; PREMATURE ACTIONS · ILLEGAL MOVES", "sharpsignalDocId": 149}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.0272, "snippet": "Clocks must not be stopped except in limited situations, most notably between games, when a die gets away, and during a dispute. Players must immediately announce and rectify any instance where the clock has been set incorrectly, is not paused when required or is running against the wrong player. A ", "headingPath": "CLOCK HANDLING AND EXPIRATION · DOUBLING CUBE ACTIONS · CRAWFORD GAME; DEAD CUBES · COMPLETION · SCOREKEEPING", "sharpsignalDocId": 149}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.026023, "snippet": "These Tournament Rules govern live tournament backgammon play. They are a complete, though concise rendition of the WBGF Tournament Rules, having the identical intent and interpretation. In case of a dispute or inquiry, participants must be truthful and forthcoming when questioned by the Tournament ", "headingPath": "Tournament Rules (Effective 1/2025) · INTERPRETATION AND SCOPE · REGISTRATION · ETIQUETTE AND LANGUAGE · MONITORS · SPECTATORS · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 149}, {"page": 25, "score": 0.025129, "snippet": "H ere's a quick and helpful reminder of the various terms used to play Backgammon featured in this book. Backgammon: A game won while the loser still has a man in the winner's home board or on the bar. The winner is awarded three times the number of points indicated by the doubling cube. Bar: The ce", "headingPath": "Glossary", "sharpsignalDocId": 148}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Doubling Cube · starting and objective · starting Position · the objective of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 148}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "EQUIPMENT: SELECTION, SETUP AND CHANGE · ERRORS IN THE STARTING POSITION · VALID ROLLS", "sharpsignalDocId": 149}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it)
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Oct 31, 2026 14:43

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. How many arms fused this ruling was NOT RECORDED (it predates the boost trail, ran on the path that stored none, or stored one that could not be read), and the ceiling depends on that count (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60): 2 arms top out at 0.03279; 3 arms top out at 0.04918. So a score above 0.03279 here is not an anomaly: it is arithmetic proof a boost arm voted, and the measured band 0.016–0.033 (taken on two-arm asks) is what does not apply. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 148)	Doubling Cube · starting and objective · starting Position · the objective of the Game	p.5	0.032522 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 148)	Backgammon History · the equipment · Backgammon Board · Men (Checkers) · Dice · Doubling Cube	p.4	0.031778 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 149)	EQUIPMENT: SELECTION, SETUP AND CHANGE · ERRORS IN THE STARTING POSITION · VALID ROLLS	p.2	0.031754 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 149)	START OR RESUME TIMES AND BREAKS · EQUIPMENT: SELECTION, SETUP AND CHANGE	p.1	0.031498 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 149)	CHECKER AND DICE HANDLING · END OF TURN; PREMATURE ACTIONS · ILLEGAL MOVES	p.2	0.029412 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 149)	CLOCK HANDLING AND EXPIRATION · DOUBLING CUBE ACTIONS · CRAWFORD GAME; DEAD CUBES · COMPLETION · SCOREKEEPING	p.3	0.0272 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 149)	Tournament Rules (Effective 1/2025) · INTERPRETATION AND SCOPE · REGISTRATION · ETIQUETTE AND LANGUAGE · MONITORS · SPECTATORS · …	p.1	0.026023 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 148)	Glossary	p.25	0.025129 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 148)	Doubling Cube · starting and objective · starting Position · the objective of the Game	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Backgammon — Rulebook (corpus doc 149)	EQUIPMENT: SELECTION, SETUP AND CHANGE · ERRORS IN THE STARTING POSITION · VALID ROLLS	p.2	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 228 ms · first delta 7140 ms · total 7917 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 228 ms · ask 7678 ms · gateway work 7917 ms · total 7917 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4077
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 99
tok/sec: 135.8 tok/sec — 99 output tokens in 0.729 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 48s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 70), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.