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As we dicussed in the last article, Backgammon is a game of skill and luck. The aim is to move your pieces safely around the game board to your inner board while at the same time your opposing player shifts their checkers toward their home board in the opposing direction. With opposing player pieces shifting in opposing directions there is bound to be conflict and the requirement for particular tactics at specific times. Here are the 2 final Backgammon strategies to round out your game.

The Priming Game Strategy

If the purpose of the blocking strategy is to slow down the opponent to shift her pieces, the Priming Game plan is to absolutely stop any activity of the opponent by building a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The opponent’s chips will either get hit, or result a damaged position if he at all tries to leave the wall. The trap of the prime can be established anyplace between point 2 and point eleven in your board. As soon as you have successfully constructed the prime to prevent the movement of your opponent, the opponent does not even get to roll the dice, that means you move your chips and roll the dice again. You’ll be a winner for sure.

The Back Game Technique

The objectives of the Back Game technique and the Blocking Game strategy are similar – to hurt your competitor’s positions hoping to better your odds of winning, but the Back Game technique uses seperate techniques to do that. The Back Game strategy is generally utilized when you’re far behind your competitor. To play Backgammon with this strategy, you need to hold 2 or more points in table, and to hit a blot late in the game. This strategy is more difficult than others to employ in Backgammon seeing as it needs careful movement of your pieces and how the checkers are moved is partly the result of the dice toss.

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

In exceptionally general terms, there are three general techniques employed. You want to be agile enough to hop between techniques quickly as the course of the match unfolds.

The Blockade

This comprises of building a 6-deep wall of pieces, or at least as deep as you might achieve, to barricade in your competitor’s checkers that are located on your 1-point. This is deemed to be the most acceptable strategy at the begining of the game. You can create the wall anywhere within your eleven-point and your 2-point and then move it into your home board as the match continues.

The Blitz

This is composed of closing your home board as quick as as you can while keeping your competitor on the bar. i.e., if your opposer tosses an early two and moves one piece from your one-point to your 3-point and you then roll a 5-5, you are able to play six/one six/one eight/three eight/three. Your competitor is then in serious trouble since they have 2 pieces on the bar and you have closed half your home board!

The Backgame

This strategy is where you have 2 or more pieces in your opponent’s inner board. (An anchor is a position filled by at least 2 of your checkers.) It needs to be used when you are significantly behind as this plan much improves your circumstances. The strongest 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 integral for a powerful backgame: at the end of the day, there’s no reason having two nice anchor spots and a complete wall in your own home board if you are then required to break up this right away, while your opponent is moving their checkers home, owing to the fact that you don’t have any other additional checkers to move! In this case, it is better to have checkers on the bar so that you can preserve your position up till your competitor provides you an opportunity to hit, so it can be a good idea to attempt and get your challenger to hit them in this case!