Backgammon Chouette: Rules, Rotation and How to Score

Backgammon for Players With Nerves

Chouette is the multiplayer form of backgammon: one player, the Box, plays alone against everyone else. The opposing side is led by a Captain, who moves the checkers. Three to six players is the usual size.

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It is the most social version of the game and, with cubes flying in several directions at once, the most volatile.

Before the rules, one thing has to be said clearly, because it governs everything that follows.

There is no official rulebook

Chouette has no governing authority. The US Backgammon Federation publishes no chouette rules — only a descriptive paragraph and an instructional column. The UK Backgammon Federation publishes none and redirects variant rules elsewhere. Neither does the World Backgammon Federation. Their tournament rules do not cover chouette at all, because chouette is not a tournament format.

What exists instead is customary law, codified club by club. The Atlanta Backgammon Association, the New England Backgammon Club in Boston, Cambridge, Brighton, Backgammon ACT in Australia — each publishes its own code, and those codes contradict each other on points that decide real money.

Albert Steg of the New England Backgammon Club states the position precisely:

"The basic chouette rotation and score-keeping practices are about the only features of the game common to backgammon players everywhere. Everything else… can vary from one circle of players to the next."

So this page does two things. It sets out the rules that are genuinely common, and it maps the disagreements — because arriving at a table assuming your home rules apply is how chouettes go wrong.

One correction while we are here. The rule set widely cited online as "the ABA Chouette Rules" is the work of the Atlanta Backgammon Association, not an American national body. It is a well-drafted club code and nothing more. If you have seen it described as national rules, that is wrong.

Where chouette came from

The word

Chouette is French for owl — specifically the earless owls. The relevant phrase is faire la chouette, "to play a lone hand," which Webster's Third traces literally as "to act like a barn owl."

The image is a good one. A lone owl caught out in daylight gets mobbed by flocks of smaller birds. That is the Box.

The earliest documented use is in card games, and here the sources conflict. The Dictionnaire de l'Académie française of 1798 records faire la chouette in Piquet — playing alone against two or more. Bill Robertie instead attributes it to Écarté, where a player could take a side bet against a spectator. The 1798 dictionary is the harder evidence; we note the disagreement rather than resolving it.

The game

Chouette arrived with doubling, in the 1920s, and both were central to the boom that peaked in America around 1930–31.

The earliest known textual reference is 1928, in Paris — Grosvenor Nicholas, writing in Vanity Fair in June 1930, describes "the thrower of the highest dice plays la chouette, or is 'In the box'." The earliest pictorial depiction may be an Abraham & Strauss advertisement of October 1929; a Marshall Field advertisement of May 1930 clearly shows a chouette in progress.

The 1931 rules

The first codified chouette rules were produced in 1931, by the same committee that wrote the Laws of Backgammon — convened by the Racquet and Tennis Club of New York on 21 February 1931, with Oswald Jacoby, Grosvenor Nicholas and John Longacre among its members. Effective 17 April 1931, distributed through Vanity Fair that May, published in hardcover by Charles Scribner's Sons, with the authority of twenty-three approving clubs.

Ten rules, and they still read clearly:

"Chouette is played by three or more members." "In beginning the game each member shall throw a die and the one throwing the highest number is then the 'Man in the Box,' the next highest is the 'Captain.'" "The Man in the Box plays alone and scores separately with each one of his adversaries. He retains his position until defeated." "The Captain may consult with any or all of the partners on any question that may arise in the course of the game. He is, however, the final arbiter."

Two things about that text are worth pausing on. It never mentions a doubling cube — only "a double offered by the Man in the Box." And it permits unrestricted consultation, which is the exact opposite of what most clubs do today.

The reason for the first is chronological: doubling existed in the 1920s, but the physical cube did not. Grosvenor Nicholas claimed to have originated the object in spring 1930. So in 1931 there was a double, and no cube to put it on.

The core rules

Setting up

Everyone rolls. Highest becomes the Box, second highest the Captain, and the rest take their places in descending order. Ties are re-rolled by the tied players only.

(The Atlanta code has players roll two dice rather than one, with doubles not counting extra. A small difference, but it is the kind of thing to settle before the first roll.)

New players join at the bottom of the rotation. The 1931 rule: "Any applicant to Chouette may be accepted. He becomes the last ranking member in the first game in which he participates."

Who does what

The Box plays alone and scores separately against every opponent. With four opponents at €1 a point, the Box has €4 at risk before any cube is turned.

The Captain moves the checkers and is the only player who may touch them. The Captain has final say on every checker play.

Team members advise within whatever consultation rule is in force, and handle their own cubes. They do not touch checkers.

Rotation — and the biggest disagreement in the game

The common part: if the Captain beats the Box, the Captain becomes the new Box and the old Box goes to the back of the team. If the Box wins, the losing Captain goes to the back and the next player up becomes Captain.

The part that is not common is the test for whether the Box stays.

System A — beat the Captain. The Box's game against the Captain decides it, and nothing else does. Bill Robertie: "A player retains the box if he defeats the captain, regardless of the results of the other games." Boston uses this. So does the 1931 rule: "He retains his position until defeated."

System B — beat the Captain and not lose money. The Atlanta code: "Box must always at least break even for the last game to remain Box. If Captain loses and Box also loses points in that game… then Box goes to the end of the Team behind Captain." Backgammon ACT requires the Box to "win the game AND win money."

Under System B the Box can beat the Captain and still lose the box — by being beaten badly enough by the rest of the team. Under System A that is impossible.

This is not a detail. It changes who sits where for the rest of the session, and it is worth settling out loud before anyone rolls.

When the Captain drops but others take

The 1931 rules already handled this, and modern codes follow them closely:

"Should the Captain decline to accept a double offered by the Man in the Box he loses his position, and forfeits to the Man in the Box his count previous to the proposed double." "When a double has been declined by the Captain, any or all of the other members may accept it. The highest ranking of those accepting becomes Captain until the termination of that game."

So: the Captain who drops loses the captaincy immediately, regardless of what happens next. The highest-ranking team member who took becomes acting Captain for the rest of that game. A team member who drops loses their stake but keeps their place in the rotation.

One cube or several

This is the largest structural choice in chouette, and it is worth understanding as history rather than preference.

Under a single cube, the Captain makes the doubling decision for everybody. The only decision team members keep for themselves is whether to take. Cooke and Bradshaw put it exactly in 1974: partners are bound by the Captain's decisions "except when offered a double; then, regardless of what the captain does, they may accept or refuse as they see fit."

Under multiple cubes, every player has their own and acts alone.

The single-cube tradition held up well into the 1970s. Where individual cubes first appeared is genuinely unresolved: Steg cites the October 1980 Las Vegas Backgammon Magazine reporting the new separate-cube rules being tried in Philadelphia; Robertie says California; that same magazine's masthead refers to a Monte Carlo individual-cubes variation. The underlying article survives only as a scan with no text layer, so we cannot settle it.

What is not in doubt is the outcome. Robertie: "No club that instituted the individual cube rule ever went back to the old way."

The single cube's defect was structural. It forced one cube policy onto players of different skill and different appetite for risk, and clubs patched it with buy-out provisions that Steg describes as "some quite unfair."

Multiple cubes solved that and created two new problems: the Box can now double selectively, and a single player can take alone against the whole field. Several codes constrain the second — which brings us to extras.

Consultation

Under a single cube, consultation timing is meaningless. Under multiple cubes it becomes the main lever, because a player whose cube is not yet in play has nothing at stake in the position.

The modern standard, in Steg's words, is that "consultation only after one's cube has been turned is now the predominant rule." Boston, Atlanta, Robertie and Backgammon Galore all describe versions of it.

The recognised variants:

• Consultation after your cube is turned — the standard. Advise once you have something at risk.
• Open consultation from the start — Steg recommends it where players are of similar strength, on the grounds that pooling knowledge is the point.
• Checker play only — consultation allowed, but cube decisions stay individual.
• No consultation — the Captain plays alone; members handle only their cubes.

Nearly every code bans consultation on cube decisions. Atlanta: "Players may not consult on cube decisions." Brighton: "There is no consultation on cube decisions." Cambridge bans it under its Option 1 and expressly allows it under Option 2 — the one clear exception we found.

Consultation rights end when your interest does. A player who has dropped, or doubled the Box out, stops advising.

Note how far this has travelled from 1931, where the Captain could consult anyone about anything.

The rules clubs argue about

Everything in this section varies. If money matters to you, settle these first.

Must the Box double everyone?

Selective doubling permitted — Atlanta: "Box may offer initial doubles selectively, and may also redouble selectively." Boston lets the Box assign doubles to "any or all members."

All or nothing on the first cube — Cambridge: "The initial cube decision by the Box is all or nothing." After that the Box may differentiate, but must keep the Captain in play and on the equal highest cube where possible.

Atlanta has no captain-protection provision at all. That is a direct conflict.

Settlements

Freely allowed — Atlanta lets the Box settle with any player or number of players, with no obligation to offer the same terms to everyone, and even permits the Box to sell the game to a player or spectator. Brighton allows settlements at any point, especially at cubes of 8 and above.

Banned outright — Cambridge: "No settlements."

Unregulated — Boston has no rule, because as Steg notes, "it just doesn't come up very often."

Extras

When the Box doubles and only one team member takes, that player faces the Box alone. Extras let the others buy back in by paying the lone taker for an additional cube.

The disagreements are sharp:

• Price — Steg says one point. Robertie says half the cube. These coincide only at a 2-cube.
• Compulsion — Atlanta: the lone taker "is obligated to accept any offered extras." Steg and Backgammon Galore treat them as offered and voluntary.
• Existence — Cambridge: "No props/extras/whatever you call them."

A related mechanism restricts lone takes directly: Robertie bars a lone take in contact positions with five or more players, permits it in non-contact positions, and allows "steamers" to take if others can give extras.

Someone who buys an extra is now rooting for the Box, and may not advise on checker play.

Partner of the Box

In larger games the Box may take a partner. Thresholds and terms vary:

Steg has the Box and partner dividing the net result evenly, which conflicts with Atlanta's odd-point rule. The 1931 rules have no partner provision at all.

Automatic doubles, beavers, raccoons

• Atlanta — automatic doubles not used unless agreed; beavers and raccoons allowed.
• Boston — the Box may assign a single automatic double to any or all of the team on an opening doublet; beavers allowed; no raccoons except by mutual consent.
• Cambridge — no beavers; automatics entirely at the Box's discretion.
• Backgammon ACT — first automatic double on matching opening rolls, further ones at the Box's discretion; beavers and raccoons allowed; Jacoby rule applies.
• Robertie — one automatic double at the Box's discretion, and a carryover pool: an automatic double declined by the Box is marked "C" on the scoresheet and can be used in a later game.

The 1931 rules mention none of these.

Scoring

The Box scores separately against every opponent. Single game pays the stake, gammon twice, backgammon three times, each multiplied by that opponent's cube.

Most clubs run a score sheet rather than settling after each game: one column per player, one block per round, a row for the round result and a row for the running total, with the Box, the Captain and the team order marked so the rotation stays unambiguous.

The check that catches almost every error: every round's results must sum to zero. If they do not, a sign or a cube value is wrong. Fix it before the next game rather than at the end of the night.

Before you play

Chouette is customary law, so the custom is what you agree. Settle these first:

1. Stake per point.
2. One cube or several.
3. Rotation test — beat the Captain, or beat the Captain and not lose money.
4. Consultation — from the start, after your cube turns, checker play only, or none.
5. Can the Box double selectively, and is the Captain protected?
6. Automatic doubles, beavers, raccoons, Jacoby.
7. Settlements and extras — allowed, and at what price.
8. Partner of the Box — from how many players.
9. When people may join or leave. One near-universal rule: you may not leave just before your turn in the box and rejoin at the bottom.

Thirty seconds each. Cheaper than the argument.

Sources

Chouette 1931 Rules, produced by the committee behind the 1931 Laws of Backgammon · Albert Steg, All About Chouettes and A 1930's Chronology, New England Backgammon Club · ABA Chouette Rules, Gregg Cattanach / Atlanta Backgammon Association, October 2003 edition · Boston Chouette Rules, NEBC, November 2017 · Tom Keith, How to Run a Chouette, Backgammon Galore · Dr Greg Ash, Backgammon ACT Chouette Rules, revised 2015 · Cambridge Backgammon Club, Chouette Rules · Brighton Backgammon Chouette Rules With Variations · Bill Robertie, How to Play Backgammon Chouettes, Parts 1 and 2, The Gammon Press · Oswald Jacoby and John R. Crawford, The Backgammon Book, 1970 · Barclay Cooke and Jon Bradshaw, Backgammon, the Cruelest Game, 1974 · Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 1798, on faire la chouette.

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