The producers acknowledged the significance of the Backgammon reference in the season 1 pilot…
So ponder this…. In the first few seasons we had several references to Alice and Wonderland….
In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” the story was meant to symbolize a game of cards, different scenes signifying different cards in a deck….
In “Through the looking glass” [...]

Watch the important Backgammon clip from season 1 for clues to season 6