Cloning Backgammon is a nice variant, but it seems to suffer from the fact that the reborn checkers often lead to very long games, especially when the end result is obvious. I propose to start the game with only 13 checkers, one less on each of the two 5-stacks, like in Nackgammon but without the extra back checkers.

Not only would it reduce a little the probability of a very long game, but the lack of front ammunition would probably also make for more interesting decisions in the opening. In the current state, I have a feeling that in the opening one should pretty much do everything for building one's own board as fast as possible. With less checkers, such a strategy is less likely to be successful.

A possible drawback is that it would give even more importance to hitting checkers early in the game, because 13 checkers are not really enough to play with when trying to prime the opponent. I say drawback because hitting a blot is a matter of chance, but of course the game is to take this chance into account.