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Cash game, center cube. White on roll. White to play 5-3.
Many backgammon problems boil down to a simple question: hit, or don’t hit. In essence, backgammon is a pretty simple game. In general, you want to make points, and in general, you want to hit.
Cash game, center cube. White on roll.
(a) Should White double?
(b) If doubled, should Black take, drop, or beaver?
Early game doubles cover a wide variety of positions, but in general they can be spotted by analyzing three key aspects of the game: race, position, and threats. Many years ago, Joe Sylvester (a very great player in the 80s and 90s, now somewhat inactive) coined a simple rule: if you’re ahead in two out of three of these aspects, you have a double. Your opponent may or may not have a take. Let’s evaluate these three features of Problem 12 and see what they tell us.
Cash game, center cube. Black to play 6-1.
This position is somewhat unusual. We have a roughly balanced middle game in which both sides have moderately strong home boards. Black has only one man back, and as a result White trails in the pip count by 15 pips (136 to 121).
White’s roll, 6-1, is awkward since he has no great six. Moving off the midpoint leaves a shot. Moving off the 24-point creates two blots and breaks his defensive anchor. The only sensible play that involves moving from the 7-point or 8-point is the loose hit, 8/1*, which doesn’t accomplish much. Nonetheless, White does have to pick one choice from this unappetizing situation.
Cash game, center cube, White on roll.
Part (a): White to play 4-3.
Part (b): White to play 5-1.
Both sides have anchors on the opposing 3-points, and both sides have established a few points in front of the enemy anchor. I like to call these ‘Block versus Block’ positions, to distinguish them from the better-known ‘Prime versus Prime’ positions.
Here are three problems the early stages of a long match. Try your hand and see how you do.
(A) Match, score 0-0 to 17, center cube.
White to play 3-1.
(B) Match, White leads 1-0 to 17, center cube.
White to play 5-4.
(C) Match, White leads 1-0 to 17, center cube.
Should White double? Should Black take if doubled?
Position (A): This one should have been pretty easy. When you have a 5-prime with a checker trapped behind it and not at the edge, your game plan is to make a 6-prime, and the easiest way to do that is usually to slot the prime from the back, with the idea of covering next turn. White should therefore see this as a pretty good roll and just play 13/9. The play has the added bonus of duplicating Black’s aces, since he now needs ones to hit and ones to get to the edge of the prime.
Hitting with 6/2* is a major blunder. White needs the 3-point or the 9-point to complete a 6-prime, and he only has three checkers that can participate in that fight. Playing 6/2* effectively burns one of those checkers, since the 2-point has no importance yet and White has no need for a tempo hit.
Position (B): A 6-6 on the second roll of the game is usually a great shot, giving White a lead in the race plus a couple of good points. The follow-up, however, can be tricky. With a 5-4 on the next turn, the best play is usually breaking off the anchor with 18/13/18/14. When White doesn’t get hit, he’s got plenty of builders and spares and a good chance of capitalizing on his racing lead.
Attacking with 8/3* 7/3 looks appealing at first glance, but it’s not as strong as you might think. Black has 12 immediate hits (52, 56, 43, 46, 26 and 16) that catch up in the race, plus 5-4 as a great anchoring number. Even when Black doesn’t immediately hit, the game frequently evolves into a holding game where White wants to get off his anchor on the 18-point but can’t.
Position (C): This position is tricky over the board because the solution depends on just how you ‘see’ the situation. If you see this as just a blitz, then it’s clearly not a double. White doesn’t even have a checker in the air and Black just has a 2-point board.
But if you see this through the lens of Joe Sylvester’s Position-Race-Threat matrix, then it looks very different. White leads in the race by 25 pips, 134-159. His position is better, with an extra inner point on his side and a strong anchor on Black’s side. White has threats, with a bunch of numbers to make the 4-point and other numbers that put two checkers in the air. His position is better and it’s threatening to get better still, maybe by a lot. Looked at this way, it’s an easy double and Black has the tough decision. He can take because so far he’s only facing a 2-point board and the threats are not crushing.
Cash game, center cube.
White to play 1-1.
This position shows a slightly unusual mutual holding game structure. Both sides have anchors, White on his 21-point and Black on his 18-point. Right now White trails in the race by 16 pips (123 to 107), but trailing in the race isn’t much of a disadvantage in these positions because the side that’s ahead in the race usually has to break anchor and expose himself first.
White has two decisions to make:
(1) Should he move the checkers on the 21-point or the 13-point, or leave them alone?
(2) What’s the best way to improve his inner board?
The first question is the easiest. Since White trails in the race, he wants maximum contact. The way to get maximum contact is to stay back as much as possible. so White doesn’t want to move the checkers on the 21 and 13-points unless there’s no recourse. In this case it’s even more important than usual to keep both points, because Black’s sixes are horrible if White stays where he is. Notice that in the current position 6-1, 6-3, and 6-4 all leave shots, while 6-2 and 6-6 continue stacking checkers.
So let’s leave those checkers on the 21 and 13-points alone and concentrate on the inner board.
If White wants to play only in his inner board, the obvious first choice is 4/1 6/5, building a 4-point board. It’s a perfectly safe play, and if White gets a shot next turn and hits, he won’t have to worry about an exposed blot. However, although it’s perfectly safe, it’s also poor technique. When building a board to prepare for future shots, the right idea is to build it as quickly as possible by slotting, covering, slotting, and covering. Playing 4/1 6/5 creates a 4-point board, but making the important fifth point will take a while.
A better try is 6/4 3/2(2), which creates a 4-point board with the fifth point slotted. Still, that slot on the ace-point is a little hard to cover. Better still is 6/4 3/1! which moves the slot backwards, where it’s in direct range of the 8-point. Now White has a 4-point board with the fifth point slotted and easy to cover. That approach gives him the best chance of having a 5-point board when he finally hits a shot.
