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As we have dicussed in the last article, Backgammon is a game of ability and luck. The aim is to shift your chips safely around the game board to your home board while at the same time your opposing player moves their pieces toward their home board in the opposing direction. With opposing player chips moving in opposite directions there is bound to be conflict and the need for particular techniques at particular instances. Here are the last 2 Backgammon tactics to complete your game.

The Priming Game Strategy

If the goal of the blocking plan is to slow down the opponent to shift his chips, the Priming Game strategy is to completely stop any activity of the opponent by assembling a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The opponent’s checkers will either get bumped, or end up in a damaged position if she ever tries to leave the wall. The trap of the prime can be built anywhere between point 2 and point 11 in your game board. As soon as you’ve successfully built the prime to stop the activity of the competitor, the opponent does not even get a chance to toss the dice, and you shift your chips and roll the dice again. You’ll win the game for sure.

The Back Game Strategy

The goals of the Back Game plan and the Blocking Game plan are similar – to harm your opponent’s positions with hope to better your odds of succeeding, but the Back Game tactic utilizes seperate tactics to achieve that. The Back Game strategy is often used when you’re far behind your competitor. To compete in Backgammon with this strategy, you have to control two or more points in table, and to hit a blot late in the game. This plan is more challenging than others to use in Backgammon because it needs careful movement of your chips and how the chips are relocated is partially the outcome of the dice roll.

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

In exceptionally simple terms, there are three basic plans used. You want to be agile enough to switch techniques almost instantly as the action of the game unfolds.

The Blockade

This involves assembling a 6-thick wall of checkers, or at a minimum as thick as you might manage, to block in the competitor’s checkers that are on your 1-point. This is considered to be the most suitable procedure at the start of the game. You can build the wall anywhere within your 11-point and your two-point and then shuffle it into your home board as the game progresses.

The Blitz

This involves locking your home board as quick as as you can while keeping your opposer on the bar. i.e., if your challenger tosses an early 2 and moves one piece from your one-point to your 3-point and you then roll a 5-5, you will be able to play six/one six/one eight/three eight/three. Your challenger is now in serious difficulty due to the fact that they have two pieces on the bar and you have closed half your inner board!

The Backgame

This tactic is where you have 2 or higher checkers in your competitor’s home board. (An anchor spot is a point occupied by at a minimum two of your checkers.) It must be used when you are extremely behind as this strategy much improves your circumstances. The better places for anchor spots are towards your competitor’s lower points and also on adjacent points or with a single point in between. Timing is important for a powerful backgame: at the end of the day, there’s no reason having two nice anchor spots and a solid wall in your own inner board if you are then forced to break apart this straight away, while your competitor is getting their checkers home, considering that you do not have any other extra checkers to move! In this situation, it’s more favorable to have pieces on the bar so that you are able to maintain your position until your challenger provides you a chance to hit, so it can be a wonderful idea to try and get your competitor to hit them in this situation!