What is a Chouette?

One interesting and quite a popular way to play backgammon is called a chouette. This form of backgammon competition is described as a social way of playing the game. Playing backgammon this way is like setting up a mini-contest that has some sort of a round-robin tournament twist.

In a chouette one person gets to pit his luck and wits against two or more players. So let's say there are four players in this type of backgammon tournament, then one player has the opportunity to play against three opponents. This makes our good old backgammon really interesting (also works well when you get bored of those one on one games).

So when you feel like trying something new with your backgammon set, here's how a chouette would go. One player would play the role of the box (this is the player who gets to take on the rest of the other players). The team of backgammon players in a chouette that go against the box is otherwise referred to as the crew.

The crew will have one backgammon player designated as captain. The captain gets to make the final decision when it comes to how the checkers are played. But, of course, the rest of the crew can help.

So how do we designate which backgammon player gets to be the box, the captain, and the rest of the crew? To do this would be like starting any ordinary backgammon game - all players roll a single dice each. The backgammon player who makes the highest score gets to become the box, player who gets the second highest becomes captain.

The rest of the crew will be ranked according to their dice rolls. In case of ties, the backgammon players who had ties would have to make another roll to break the tie.

A chouette is played like any money play - every other backgammon rule applies. The only difference is that there is no match score. The box gets only one game is played against the crew for every round.

If the box wins, the captain gets booted as the lowest member of the crew, the player who got the score second to the captain becomes the new captain of the crew in a chouette, and the box retains his crown. But, if the box loses, the current captain becomes the new box and the old box gets booted out as the last member of the crew in chouette.

The payoff in a chouette works like this, if the box wins then each team member pays off the box. If the box loses then that player gets to pay off each team member, straight and simple.

Chouette is an interesting and challenging way to play backgammon. It's a great way to add to the challenge of our good old backgammon competition.