Backgammon was bad enough, it was a game that I had learned as a kid but had now forgotten, pushed into the back of my memories along with penny sweets and short trousers. But backgammon online the very thought brought me out in cold sweats.

Still I had been told by my own kids to try backgammon online; apparently it's becoming all the rage with teenagers who are getting fed up with video games and 'games of little consequence' as I have been told by my eldest.

So under the watchful eye of my teenage son, I visited the site that he and his friends play the most on www.play65.com. I followed the instructions and quickly began to download the game, prompted by his finger prodding's on my shoulder.

It was then that I noticed the site had a school, an online school that catered not just for beginners but for those who wanted to get better at the game. One of the new attractions of backgammon has been the introduction of the money game, so that on this site people can play not just or fun but for money.

It was good to see that there were many safeguards to stop minors those under 18, which included my children playing in these money games, which meant my kids were playing here purely for the fun of the game.

I felt better about the whole thing now, knowing that they were responsible and at the same time protected. Moreover I felt that if I got to learn the game better through the school, I would be able to enjoy the game with my kids, it was something that we could all participate in, I've missed that.

The first introduction to the school showed me the equipment, I knew about the board, the checkers and the dice, but I had not seen the doubling cube before, this was something totally new to me. But we would cover this later I was told. The first lesson, if that's what you call it, was spent chatting to the guy at the school, he showed me some opening moves and what an Anchor was and where and when to use it. He also talked about what strategy to try, In the first instant beginners go for a Running Game. The Running game is said to be the most straightforward of all the various strategies. The objective being to avoid being hit, or getting trapped, or ending up in mutually blocked stand-offs. You do this by getting your checkers to your side of the board as quickly as possible, without holding any checkers on your opponent's side of the board. This means that you must endeavour to get the deepest checkers, those inside your opponent's homeboard out of there, quickly. It seemed easy when he explained it. But putting it into practice that would take a few more lessons, fortunately it looks like I've found a good school to teach me.

Find out how you can play or get better at backgammon at he online backgammon school on www.bkgmschool.com