# Backgammon Reserve — Premium online backgammon

> Premium online backgammon for serious players, focused on fair play and skill. (iPhone/iPad app by Benjamin Taylor.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/backgammon-reserve/id6772647848 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Benjamin Taylor](https://appshunter.io/developer/6772648030)
- Category: Games, Entertainment, Board, Strategy
- Price: Free
- Rating: 5.00/5 from 14 App Store ratings · 8 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 17.0 · 16 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-07-30
- Data updated: 2026-09-09
- Monetization: free
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/backgammon-reserve/id6772647848/reviews.md

## What is Backgammon Reserve?

Backgammon Reserve is backgammon the way serious players want it.

Most backgammon apps bury the game under casino mechanics: coin balances, spin wheels, loud effects. This is the opposite. A quiet, premium table for people who already love the game and want a trustworthy place to play it.

PLAY RANKED ONLINE
Match against real players on a live Elo rating. Server-generated dice, a match clock, and full rules enforcement. The doubling cube, gammons, and backgammons all count. Your rating, global rank, and percentile are real, earned, and on display.

PLAY DAILY
Backgammon on your schedule. Up to 24 hours per move and up to twenty games at once, rated in the same pool as live play with the cube in full effect. A notification tells you the moment it is your move, and the app icon counts the games waiting on you.

MATCHES TO 3, 5 OR 7
Play a proper match, not just a game. First to the target score, Crawford rule included, with the cube live throughout. Agree a format with a friend, or pick one against the bot and in Pass and Play.

TAKE ON SIR REGINALD
One opponent. The whole community trying to beat him.

Sir Reginald plays matches to 3, 5 or 7 and never a single game. He is not a difficulty setting and nothing against him touches your rating: his ladder is its own contest, ranked two ways, most wins and best average performance rating.

His judgement comes from a neural network that taught itself backgammon over 750,000 games against itself, with no strategy written by hand. A bot built from written rules can only be as good as whoever wrote them. One that learns from results is free to find plays nobody thought to teach it.

SEE WHERE YOU WENT WRONG
Every match against Sir Reginald ends with a full review. A rating for how you played, your costliest decision shown on the board with the better move beside it, and a chart of how your chance of winning moved with every decision. It separates the dice from the play, so you can tell being outplayed from being unlucky.

STANDINGS
See exactly where you stand. The global board ranks the strongest players by rating, and your own row stays with you whether you are in the top 25 or climbing toward it, with the exact gap to the player above. A separate friends board ranks the people you actually know. Every rated game moves you, live or daily, and one rated game puts you on it.

FAIR DICE
Dice come from a cryptographically secure random source with bias rejection. No streaks engineered to keep you playing, no rolls tilted toward anyone. Online, the server rolls, so neither player's device can influence them. Against Sir Reginald you need not take it on faith: his page charts every die face rolled against the mathematics.

SHARPEN YOUR GAME AGAINST THE BOTS
Four tiers, from Beginner to Expert, all driven by the same self-taught network. Each is defined by how much it may give away per decision, so a weaker bot plays weaker moves rather than random ones. Bot games never touch your rating.

PASS AND PLAY
Hand the phone across the table. A clean two-seat mode for playing in person, at a single game or a full match.

CHALLENGE YOUR FRIENDS
Add friends, send a direct challenge, and settle it in a rated match. Play live with a clock, or start a daily game and take it slow. Agree the format, from a single game to a match to 7.

A RECORD OF EVERY GAME
Full match history, win and loss stats, streaks, recent form, and an interactive rating chart tracking every rated game you have played.

DESIGNED LIKE A MEMBERS LOUNGE
Walnut and brass, ivory checkers, understated motion. No neon, no confetti, no noise.

WHAT YOU WON'T FIND
• No coins, chips, or gambling mechanics
• No ads
• No pay-to-win mechanics. Nothing for sale.
• No engineered dice

Full backgammon rules are enforced: bar entry, blot hitting, forced maximum-pip plays, exact and overshoot bear-off, and the doubling cube with proper gammon and backgammon scoring.

## Key features

- Ranked online play with Elo rating
- Daily games with 24-hour move timers
- Fair, server-generated dice
- AI bot practice modes
- Pass & Play for in-person games
- Friend challenges and head-to-head records
- Full match history and stats

## Recent user reviews (8 of 8)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/backgammon-reserve/id6772647848/reviews.md

### 5/5 — Best app ever

*2026-08-17*

Best backgammon app ever. Giving me the opportunity to play the #1 ranked backgammon player in the world is a dream come true! Will be telling everyone about this game.

### 5/5 — 10/10 best backgammon app

*2026-08-16*

Best backgammon app on the market! No ads make for smooth playing.

### 5/5 — Finally a good Backgammon game

*2026-08-16*

I’ve been looking for years for a backgammon app to play with friends and all of the options had terrible design, tried to sell me to buy coins on every click, and were buggy.

I’ve never left a review before, but my friends and I have had so much fun playing this I had to. Download this game and you will be addicted if you love backgammon!

### 5/5 — Best backgammon app out there!

*2026-08-14*

I’ve played a few of the apps out there and none compare! The UI is clean, and the replay option is super helpful. Love the daily games feature so I can keep a game going throughout the day.

### 5/5 — No ads!

*2026-08-05*

Super easy to use and no ads! I like this app for improving my backgammon skills without having to deal with other chatter in the background

**Developer response:** Thanks! No ads is a deliberate choice. The whole app is built around the idea of being for serious players who want a high quality game that doesn't request them to buy coins every time they click on something.

### 5/5 — Love it!

*2026-08-05*

Playing the app with my family near and far. Can’t recommend it enough.

**Developer response:** This one means a lot - playing across distance is exactly what I had in mind. If you've ever wished a game could sit unfinished for a day while everyone takes their turn, that's something I just released. Try it out with your family!

### 5/5 — GOAT Backgammon App

*2026-08-04*

Great app for peer to peer games and even just single bot play. Love the “learn Backgammon” feature!

**Developer response:** Thank you! Glad you got something out of the learn game mode.

### 5/5 — Love this app

*2026-08-04*

This is the best backgammon app I’ve ever used! Definitely recommend for backgammon lovers

**Developer response:** Appreciate it! Thanks for taking the time to write something. More updates on the way.

## Frequently asked questions about Backgammon Reserve

### Does Backgammon Reserve have ads?

No, Backgammon Reserve is completely ad-free. The developers explicitly state that ads are not present in the application.

### How does the rating system work in Backgammon Reserve?

Backgammon Reserve uses a live Elo rating system for ranked online matches. Your global rank and percentile are real and earned through gameplay.

### Can I play Backgammon Reserve offline?

Yes, you can play against AI bots in Backgammon Reserve without an internet connection. These bot games do not affect your rating.

### What devices is Backgammon Reserve available on?

Backgammon Reserve is currently supported on iPhone devices. Information on availability for other platforms is not provided.

### How often is Backgammon Reserve updated?

The latest version of Backgammon Reserve is 1.2.0, which was last updated on August 7, 2026. This indicates a recent update, suggesting active development.

### What are the different AI bot difficulties in Backgammon Reserve?

Backgammon Reserve offers four tiers of AI bots, ranging from Beginner to Expert. The stronger bots utilize validated opening books and understand complex game positions.

### Is Backgammon Reserve suitable for new players?

Yes, Backgammon Reserve includes a built-in rules guide that teaches everything from game setup to the doubling cube, making it accessible for beginners.

### What is the age rating for Backgammon Reserve?

Backgammon Reserve has an age rating of 12+. This suggests it is appropriate for players aged 12 and older.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.6.2 — 2026-09-08

KEEP THE GAMES COMING

Once your move is in on a daily game, the board now offers Next Game: one tap opens the daily game that needs you soonest, with no trip back through My Games. The same button is on the result screen when a daily game ends.

If nothing is waiting on you, it offers Find a New Match instead, which starts a normal daily seek. If you already have a seek out, the button stays out of the way.

Daily games only. Live play, bot games and Pass & Play are unchanged.

### 1.6.1 — 2026-09-05

NOW ON IPAD

Backgammon Reserve runs on iPad, in both orientations and at any window size. The board scales to fill the screen, so a 13-inch iPad gets a 13-inch board.

YOUR MUSIC KEEPS PLAYING

Opening Sir Reginald's page used to stop whatever you had on, whether that was music, a podcast or an audiobook. It no longer does, anywhere in the app. 

ALSO FIXED

Sir Reginald's community win-rate chart was cutting off the top of its scale, and the line showing your own record sat in the wrong place along the bottom axis. Both lines are now drawn where they belong, and both are labelled.

### 1.6.0 — 2026-09-02

SIR REGINALD HAS TAKEN HIS SEAT

A grandmaster bot with his own page, his own ladder, and the whole community trying to beat him. He plays matches to 3, 5 or 7 and never a single game, because a one-point match has no doubling cube and the cube is half of what he is testing.

He is not a difficulty setting, and nothing against him touches your rating. His ladder is its own contest, ranked two ways: most wins, and best average performance. That second board means you have a score to chase from your very first match, long before your first win.

His judgement comes from a neural network that taught itself backgammon over 750,000 games against itself, with no strategy written by hand.

SEE EXACTLY WHERE YOU WENT WRONG

Every match against him ends with a full review of how you played.

• A performance rating, with the calculation explained and your result placed on a scale from perfect to poor
• Your costliest decision on the real board, with a play button, and a toggle between what you played and what was best
• Every other decision that cost you something, worst first
• A chart of how your chance of winning moved with each decision, so you can see the moment the match turned. Drag it to read any point, or tap a mistake to open that board
• Luck measured separately from skill, so you can tell being outplayed from being unlucky
• Short answers to the questions the numbers raise, including what equity is and how it knows the best move

HIS PAGE

How the community is faring against him over time, his win rate at each match length, where in a game people lose, and an audit of every die either side has rolled against what a fair die actually does. If you have ever wondered whether a backgammon app leans on the dice, that chart is there to be checked rather than believed.

### 1.5.1 — 2026-08-28

Fixed a bug where winning an online game could leave you stuck on the board without your result screen. Your rating and match record were always recorded correctly — this was only the screen.

Also in this update: the invite screen no longer cuts off your opponent's picture, daily invites explain the pace more clearly, and the format picker no longer mentions a doubling cube or a rating change in bot and Pass & Play games, which have neither.

### 1.5.0 — 2026-08-26

Matches to 3, 5 and 7 points

Backgammon as it's actually played. Win games to reach the target score, with gammons and the doubling cube deciding how fast you get there. The Crawford rule is enforced, so the cube stays a real decision right to the end.

Choose a format when you start a bot game or Pass & Play, or agree one with a specific player. Matches to 3 are available in Daily.

A much stronger bot

Checker play has been rebuilt around a trained network rather than hand-written rules. It weighs whole turns at once instead of one die at a time, so it finds plays the old bot simply couldn't see. It also understands gammons, so it knows the difference between winning and winning big.

Each difficulty now means something specific. Beginner plays like a beginner. Expert plays the best move it can find, every time.

Invite anyone

The Daily and Live invite buttons now work on any player's profile, not just friends. The Standings board is somewhere to find a game, not just a table to read.

Also in this release

• The cube now tells you what a decision costs in match terms, including when declining would lose you the match outright
• In Daily, you can set a cube decision aside and study the board before answering
• Resign a single game without conceding the whole match
• Each game of a match starts on a fresh clock
• Fixes to the score display, match history rows and landscape layout

## Related topics

[backgammon score card](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/backgammon-score-card) · [backgamonworldwide](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/backgamonworldwide)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-09.*
