Black – Pips 150 (+13)
Black to Play 4-1
Playing Efficiently
Black – Pips 150 (+13)
Black to Play 4-1
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Bill Robertie
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Black – Pips 150 (+13)
Black to Play 4-1
Evaluating Candidate Plays
While many plays in backgammon are virtually forced, other situations may leave you with five or more reasonable alternatives. This is especially true of doubles, where the number of possibilities may be even higher.
In such situations, you need a systematic approach to finding the best play. Most players react haphazardly in these situations. They look for a good play, think about it for a few moments, and only look for a second or third play if the first play doesn’t look appealing. If the second play doesn’t look good after a moment or two, they may bounce back to their first play, or cast around for another. The result is a chaotic decision process that may well overlook the best play.
Fighting Stacked Positions
One common dilemma that players routinely face is that of hitting a tasty blot or making a strong blocking point. In very general terms, hitting the blot is most likely right. Hitting both gains ground in the race and prevents your opponent from improving his structure, which in normal positions will outweigh other choices.
As your opponent’s position becomes stacked and stripped, however, hitting blots recedes in importance while building blocking points grows. The reason has to do with timing. A stacked position can be repaired, but typically some time is required. A game with hitting and recirculating of checkers provides exactly that sort of time. A prime, however, tends to shorten the game, as a single bad roll can destroy the weaker player’s position in an instant. By building a prime, the aggressor can accelerate the crisis point to his advantage.
Evaluating Early Doubles
When contemplating a middle game double, don’t make the mistake of looking only at your position. Remember to look just as carefully at the weaknesses in your opponent’s position. It may be his weakness, rather than your strength, that gives you a good double.
Prince Alexis Obolensky – The Father of Modern Backgammon
This year, Prince Alexis Obolensky was elected to the American Backgammon Hall of Fame. (I always thought he should have been elected with the first class of inductees, but better late than never.) For those who aren’t familiar with Oby or his accomplishments, here’s a brief biographical sketch.
The Tempo Hit
In backgammon, most hits are done for one of two reasons: to gain ground in the race, or to attack a key point. A rarer, but still important use of the hit, is a defensive idea called the tempo play. Here the plan is to prevent your opponent from using his whole roll to do something good. By hitting (usually in your home board), you force him to spend half his roll coming in from the bar, so he’s not in position to do something devastating elsewhere on the board.
