The Essential Basics of Backgammon Strategies – Part Two

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As we dicussed in the last article, Backgammon is a game of ability and pure luck. The goal is to shift your chips carefully around the board to your home board and at the same time your opposing player moves their checkers toward their inner board in the opposing direction. With competing player checkers shifting in opposite directions there is bound to be conflict and the need for particular tactics at particular times. Here are the two final Backgammon strategies to complete your game.

The Priming Game Plan

If the aim of the blocking strategy is to hamper the opponents ability to shift her chips, the Priming Game plan is to absolutely stop any activity of the opposing player by building a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The competitor’s chips will either get bumped, or end up in a battered position if he at all 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. Once you’ve successfully built the prime to block the movement of your competitor, the opponent does not even get a chance to toss the dice, that means you shift your chips and roll the dice yet again. You’ll be a winner for sure.

The Back Game Plan

The aims of the Back Game plan and the Blocking Game strategy are similar – to harm your competitor’s positions with hope to improve your chances of winning, however the Back Game tactic relies on alternate tactics to achieve that. The Back Game plan is frequently employed when you are 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 (a single checker) late in the game. This strategy is more challenging than others to play in Backgammon seeing as it requires careful movement of your pieces and how the checkers are relocated is partially the outcome of the dice roll.