The goal of a Backgammon match is to shift your pieces around the game board and pull them off the board quicker than your challenger who works harder to achieve the same buthowever they move in the opposite direction. Succeeding in a round of Backgammon requires both strategy and luck. Just how far you will be able to move your chips is up to the numbers from rolling a pair of dice, and just how you move your checkers are determined by your overall gambling plans. Players use a number of plans in the different stages of a match dependent on your positions and opponent’s.
The Running Game Technique
The goal of the Running Game strategy is to entice all your pieces into your home board and bear them off as fast as you can. This technique concentrates on the pace of shifting your checkers with little or no efforts to hit or barricade your opponent’s checkers. The best scenario to use this plan is when you think you can move your own checkers faster than the opposing player does: when 1) you have a fewer chips on the board; 2) all your checkers have past your opponent’s pieces; or 3) the opponent does not use the hitting or blocking technique.
The Blocking Game Tactic
The primary goal of the blocking plan, by the name, is to stop your competitor’s pieces, temporarily, while not worrying about moving your checkers quickly. Once you’ve created the barrier for your opponent’s movement with a couple of checkers, you can move your other chips quickly from the board. You should also have a good strategy when to extract and shift the chips that you employed for the blockade. The game becomes interesting when the competitor utilizes the same blocking tactic.
In exceptionally simple terms, there are three general techniques employed. You need to be able to switch techniques quickly as the course of the game unfolds.
The Blockade
This is composed of creating a 6-deep wall of pieces, or at a minimum as deep as you can manage, to barricade in the competitor’s pieces that are on your 1-point. This is judged to be the most adequate strategy at the begining of the match. You can build the wall anywhere inbetween your 11-point and your 2-point and then shift it into your home board as the match continues.
The Blitz
This involves locking your home board as quick as possible while keeping your challenger on the bar. e.g., if your challenger tosses an early 2 and moves one checker from your one-point to your three-point and you then roll a five-five, you will be able to play six/one six/one 8/3 eight/three. Your opponent is now in big-time calamity considering that they have two checkers on the bar and you have closed half your inside board!
The Backgame
This tactic is where you have two or higher pieces in your opponent’s inner board. (An anchor is a position consisting of at a minimum two of your checkers.) It needs to be played when you are extremely behind as this strategy much improves your circumstances. The strongest locations for anchor spots are towards your opponent’s smaller points and also on adjacent points or with one point in between. Timing is important for a powerful backgame: after all, there’s no point having 2 nice anchor spots and a solid wall in your own home board if you are then required to break down this right away, while your challenger is getting their pieces home, taking into account that you don’t have any other spare pieces to shift! In this situation, it’s better to have pieces on the bar so that you can maintain your position up until your challenger provides you a chance to hit, so it may be a wonderful idea to try and get your opponent to hit them in this case!
As we dicussed in the last article, Backgammon is a casino game of skill and good luck. The aim is to shift your pieces carefully around the game board to your home board while at the same time your opposing player moves their pieces toward their inner board in the opposite direction. With opposing player checkers heading in opposite directions there is going to be conflict and the requirement for specific techniques at specific instances. Here are the last two Backgammon strategies to round out your game.
The Priming Game Tactic
If the aim of the blocking plan is to hamper the opponents ability to move their pieces, the Priming Game strategy is to absolutely barricade any movement of the opposing player by assembling a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The opponent’s chips will either get hit, or result a damaged position if he/she ever tries to leave the wall. The ambush of the prime can be setup anyplace between point 2 and point 11 in your half of the board. As soon as you’ve successfully built the prime to prevent the activity of your competitor, your competitor doesn’t even get to roll the dice, and you shift your pieces and roll the dice yet again. You will win the game for sure.
The Back Game Tactic
The goals of the Back Game plan and the Blocking Game tactic are similar – to hinder your competitor’s positions with hope to better your odds of succeeding, however the Back Game technique uses alternate techniques to do that. The Back Game tactic is commonly employed when you’re far behind your opponent. To play Backgammon with this technique, you have to hold two or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single checker) late in the game. This technique is more complex than others to use in Backgammon because it requires careful movement of your chips and how the chips are moved is partially the outcome of the dice toss.
