Backgammon Secrets

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

As we have dicussed in the previous article, Backgammon is a game of ability and luck. The goal is to shift your pieces safely around the board to your home board and at the same time your opponent shifts their checkers toward their inside board in the opposing direction. With opposing player chips heading in opposite directions there is bound to be conflict and the need for particular strategies at specific times. Here are the 2 final Backgammon plans to round out your game.

The Priming Game Plan

If the goal of the blocking strategy is to slow down the opponent to shift her pieces, the Priming Game strategy is to completely barricade any movement of the opponent by building a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The competitor’s chips will either get hit, or end up in a damaged position if he ever tries to leave the wall. The ambush of the prime can be setup anywhere between point two and point eleven in your half of the board. As soon as you have successfully assembled the prime to prevent the activity of your competitor, the opponent doesn’t even get a chance to toss the dice, and you move your chips and roll the dice again. You’ll be a winner for sure.

The Back Game Technique

The objectives of the Back Game plan and the Blocking Game technique are similar – to hinder your competitor’s positions with hope to improve your chances of succeeding, however the Back Game technique uses alternate tactics to achieve that. The Back Game tactic is generally utilized when you’re far behind your competitor. To compete in Backgammon with this technique, you have to control 2 or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single checker) late in the game. This technique is more challenging than others to employ in Backgammon seeing as it needs careful movement of your checkers and how the chips are moved is partly the outcome of the dice roll.