The Essential Basics of Backgammon Game Plans – Part 2

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As we have dicussed in the previous article, Backgammon is a game of ability and good luck. The aim is to move your pieces safely around the board to your home board and at the same time your opponent moves their pieces toward their inside board in the opposing direction. With competing player chips shifting in opposing directions there is bound to be conflict and the need for particular techniques at specific times. Here are the last two Backgammon strategies to finish off your game.

The Priming Game Tactic

If the purpose of the blocking tactic is to slow down the opponent to shift his chips, the Priming Game strategy is to absolutely stop any activity of the opposing player by assembling a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The opponent’s pieces will either get bumped, or end up in a bad position if he ever tries to leave the wall. The ambush of the prime can be built anywhere between point two and point 11 in your board. After you have successfully assembled the prime to prevent the movement of your opponent, your opponent does not even get to toss the dice, and you shift your pieces and roll the dice again. You will be a winner for sure.

The Back Game Tactic

The goals of the Back Game tactic and the Blocking Game strategy are similar – to hinder your competitor’s positions with hope to better your odds of winning, however the Back Game tactic utilizes seperate tactics to do that. The Back Game technique is generally used when you are far behind your competitor. To play Backgammon with this tactic, you have to control 2 or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single checker) late in the game. This plan is more difficult than others to employ in Backgammon because it requires careful movement of your checkers and how the checkers are relocated is partly the result of the dice roll.