Comparison

Backgammon vs Backgammon Reserve

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Backgammon

Engage in classic backgammon matches against players worldwide or hone your skills against a customizable AI. Analyze past games, solve challenging puzzles, and track your progress on global leaderboards. Play anytime, anywhere, even offline.

Highlights
  • Real-time online multiplayer with ELO rating
  • Offline AI opponent with adjustable difficulty
  • Post-game analysis with accuracy and luck breakdown
  • Rated puzzles based on real game positions
  • Study any position with engine analysis
  • Global and friend leaderboards
  • Pass and play on a single device
Features
Read full description

Play backgammon online against real players, or practice offline against a challenging engine. Learn, improve your game, solve challenging puzzles, and climb the rating ladder. PLAY ONLINE Match with opponents worldwide in real-time rated games. Every win and loss moves your rating, so every move matters. A game clock keeps matches fast and fair, and the doubling cube is there when you want to double what the game is worth. PLAY YOUR FRIENDS Share a private game code, or challenge someone from your friends list and see who's online. Or hand the phone back and forth and play on one board, with no internet needed. Send friends an invite link, see suggestions of people you may know, and get notified when friends challenge you. PLAY THE COMPUTER Practice against the engine at the difficulty you choose, from a gentle warm-up to an opponent that punishes a loose blot. Works fully offline. SEE WHERE YOU WENT WRONG After any game, replay it move by move with the engine's verdict on each one. See your accuracy score, the best play drawn beside the one you made, and how much of the result was the dice rather than the decisions. SOLVE RATED PUZZLES Work through positions taken from real games. Every puzzle has a rating and so do you: solve harder ones and yours climbs. STUDY ANY POSITION Set up a board by hand, pick the dice, and let the engine show you the best play and what the cube is worth. TRACK YOUR PROGRESS Follow your rating over time with charts and statistics: win rate, gammons and backgammons, day streak, and a running tally of every number the dice have given you. Compare yourself against friends, your country, and the global leaderboard. FEATURES - Real-time online multiplayer with ELO rating - Private game codes and direct friend challenges - Invite links, friend suggestions and challenge notifications - Pass and play on one device - Engine opponent with difficulty levels - Post-game analysis with accuracy and luck breakdown - Rated puzzles with your own puzzle rating - Analysis board for studying any position - Doubling cube - Friends, country, and global leaderboards - Dice statistics and day streaks - Roll physical dice and enter what you get - Game clock with time increments - Available in 30 languages - Play the computer with no internet connection

About

Backgammon Reserve

A premium backgammon experience focused on serious players. Enjoy ranked online matches with Elo ratings, daily play options, and in-depth post-game analysis. Challenge a sophisticated AI opponent and track your global and friends' standings.

Highlights
  • Ranked online matches with Elo rating
  • Daily play with up to 24 hours per move
  • Match play to 3, 5, or 7 points
  • Advanced AI opponent 'Sir Reginald'
  • Detailed post-game analysis and review
  • Global and friends standings
  • Secure, unbiased dice rolls
Read full description

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.

Screenshots

Backgammon4 screens
Backgammon Reserve4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Backgammon Reserve at none against Backgammon's shown. Backgammon Reserve also leads on monetization model (free vs ad-supported). Backgammon's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Backgammon against 5.0 for Backgammon Reserve. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 18 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Backgammon ships an update every 3 days, Backgammon Reserve every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Backgammon versus Backgammon Reserve: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBackgammonBackgammon Reserve
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (8 ratings)5.0 (18 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings818 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 5 days
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationAd-supportedFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS13.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size77 MB17 MB
Age rating12+12+
DeveloperHayder Dheyaa Yahya YahyaBenjamin Taylor

Customer experience

Backgammon

All ratings8 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Backgammon Reserve

All ratings18 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews10 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Backgammon

No in-app purchases

None

Backgammon Reserve

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Backgammon free?
Backgammon is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Backgammon Reserve free?
Backgammon Reserve is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Backgammon or Backgammon Reserve?
Backgammon and Backgammon Reserve are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 8 and 18 ratings respectively.
Do Backgammon or Backgammon Reserve have ads?
Backgammon shows ads; Backgammon Reserve does not.
Which is updated more often, Backgammon or Backgammon Reserve?
Backgammon ships an update every 3 days, and Backgammon Reserve every 5 days. Most recently, Backgammon was updated on November 7, 2026 and Backgammon Reserve on November 10, 2026.

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