The Essential Basics of Backgammon Strategies – Part Two

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

As we have dicussed in the previous article, Backgammon is a game of talent and pure luck. The goal is to move your chips safely around the board to your home board and at the same time your opponent shifts their pieces toward their inside board in the opposite direction. With competing player checkers moving in opposite directions there is going to be conflict and the need for specific techniques at particular times. Here are the two final Backgammon techniques to finish off your game.

The Priming Game Strategy

If the goal of the blocking strategy is to slow down the opponent to move her checkers, the Priming Game tactic is to absolutely barricade any movement of the opponent by constructing a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The competitor’s pieces will either get bumped, or end up in a battered position if she at all tries to escape the wall. The ambush of the prime can be established anyplace between point two and point 11 in your game board. Once you’ve successfully constructed the prime to block the activity of the opponent, your competitor does not even get a chance to toss the dice, and you shift your checkers and roll the dice yet again. You’ll win the game for sure.

The Back Game Technique

The goals of the Back Game technique and the Blocking Game strategy are similar – to hurt your competitor’s positions in hope to improve your chances of succeeding, but the Back Game technique relies on alternate tactics to achieve that. The Back Game technique is often employed when you’re far behind your competitor. To compete in Backgammon with this technique, you have to hold two or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single piece) late in the game. This plan is more complex than others to employ in Backgammon seeing as it requires careful movement of your chips and how the chips are relocated is partially the result of the dice toss.