wellywales: Another way is to ask a high rated player if they'd play unrated against you and explain their moves. Not everyone is willing to be a teacher but some are. Stormerne's fellowships (Tablut and Xiangqi (Chinese Chess)) feature learning tournaments in which the players are required/encouraged to explain their reasoning as they go, so both players learn off each other.

I'd be happy to play a couple of tutorial matches in Backgammon. :-)