The Essential Basics of Backgammon Strategies – Part Two

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As we dicussed in the previous article, Backgammon is a casino game of talent and pure luck. The goal is to move your pieces carefully around the game board to your inside board and at the same time your opposition moves their pieces toward their inner board in the opposite direction. With competing player pieces shifting in opposing directions there is going to be conflict and the need for specific strategies at particular times. Here are the last 2 Backgammon techniques to finish off your game.

The Priming Game Plan

If the goal of the blocking plan is to slow down the opponent to shift her chips, the Priming Game strategy is to absolutely stop any movement of the opponent by building a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The competitor’s checkers will either get hit, or end up in a damaged position if he/she at all tries to escape the wall. The ambush of the prime can be established anywhere between point 2 and point eleven in your game board. Once you have successfully built the prime to block the activity of your competitor, the opponent does not even get to toss the dice, and you move your checkers and toss the dice yet again. You’ll win the game for sure.

The Back Game Tactic

The goals of the Back Game strategy and the Blocking Game tactic are very similar – to hinder your competitor’s positions with hope to improve your chances of succeeding, but the Back Game technique utilizes different techniques to achieve that. The Back Game strategy is commonly employed when you’re far behind your competitor. To compete in Backgammon with this strategy, you need to control 2 or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single checker) late in the game. This tactic is more difficult than others to employ in Backgammon because it requires careful movement of your chips and how the pieces are moved is partly the outcome of the dice toss.