Backgammon – Three Basic Plans

In astonishingly general terms, there are three chief strategies employed. You need to be agile enough to hop between tactics quickly as the action of the match unfolds.

The Blockade

This consists of assembling a 6-deep wall of checkers, or at a minimum as thick as you are able to manage, to lock in your competitor’s checkers that are located on your 1-point. This is judged to be the most acceptable strategy at the begining of the game. You can build the wall anywhere inbetween your 11-point and your 2-point and then shuffle it into your home board as the match continues.

The Blitz

This is composed of closing your home board as quickly as as you can while keeping your opposer on the bar. For example, if your competitor rolls an early 2 and moves one piece from your 1-point to your three-point and you then roll a 5-5, you can play 6/1 6/1 eight/three 8/3. Your opposer is now in big-time trouble since they have two checkers on the bar and you have closed half your inner board!

The Backgame

This strategy is where you have two or higher anchors in your competitor’s inner board. (An anchor is a point filled by at least 2 of your checkers.) It would be employed when you are extremely behind as it greatly improves your chances. The better places for anchors are close to your competitor’s lower points and also on adjoining points or with a single point in between. Timing is important for an effective backgame: besides, there is no reason having two nice anchor spots and a solid wall in your own inner board if you are then required to break up this right away, while your challenger is shifting their pieces home, considering that you don’t have any other spare pieces to shift! In this case, it is better to have pieces on the bar so that you can preserve your position up until your opposer provides you an opportunity to hit, so it will be a wonderful idea to try and get your competitor to get them in this case!

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