In this position, with Black on roll, who is a favorite?
Black – Pips 140
Black on roll. Who’s a favorite?
Position or Race?
Black – Pips 140
Black on roll. Who’s a favorite?
Backgammon Books
A practical way to become a winner at backgammon is to glean instruction from the best players. Some of the backgammon world’s highest awards have written books to assist players both novice and advanced.
A good book by a backgammon expert can provide game-changing information at a reasonable price which players (and would-be players) can absorb at their own pace. The Gammon Press store stocks essential reads by Bill Robertie and Kit Woolsey, along with the works of Bob Wachtel, Peter Bell and others. If you want to improve your backgammon game, this is the place to start.
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Black – Pips 140
Black on roll. Who’s a favorite?
Holding Game Doubles
Last article, we talked about some of the tricky play problems that arise in high anchor positions. This time, we’ll start to look at doubling strategy in these common situations. (Remember, a high anchor game is one where one player has escaped all his back checkers, while his opponent has managed to secure an anchor on the 4-point or 5-point.)
High Anchor Holding Games
Next to races, the most common type of position in backgammon is what we call the holding game. Holding games occur when one side escapes his back checkers to the safety of the midpoint or beyond, but the other side (the “defender”) does not. Instead, the defender manages to anchor his two back checkers somewhere in his opponent’s home board.
More on Duplication
In my last post, I introduced the concept of duplication. It’s a powerful idea, one of the crucial tactical ideas in backgammon. Look for your opponent’s numbers that already play well, and remember that plays which expose blots to those very same numbers elsewhere on the board become stronger than they at first appear. Here’s another good example.
Duplication
Duplication is a cute tactical idea which can lead you to make the right play in a wide variety of situations. The basic idea is pretty simple. You find yourself in a vulnerable position. You roll an awkward number. No matter what move you make, your opponent will have some bad things he can do to you next turn. You want to minimize the number of his rolls that can hurt you. What do you do?
The answer? Duplication! Try to play your number in such a way that your opponent needs the same number to accomplish his goals everywhere on the board, rather than different numbers in different places. In this way, you reduce his effective numbers to a minimum, giving yourself the best possible chance to survive.
Volunteering a Shot
Backgammon is basically a race, and losing ground in a race is usually a bad idea, to be avoided if at all possible. Safe, constructive plays are generally good. Constructive plays which leave a few indirect shots aren’t bad, and are often necessary to make progress.
But sometimes there aren’t any safe plays, or even moderately risky plays, that make progress. What if the safe plays all hurt your position in some way? Then you may start looking at plays that leave a direct shot. These plays may be costly if your opponent hits, but they may improve your position if your opponent misses (which he’s generally favored to do.)
