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“Reading every word, slowly studying each diagram and following your analysis was invaluable to strengthening not only my checker play but my understanding of fundamental backgammon.”
Bill Robertie welcomes the opportunity to share his knowledge of backgammon with experienced players and beginners alike.
On his blog, Robertie publishes set and equipment reviews, creates quiz contests and provides free lessons. He would be remiss not to include his Robertie’s Rules! He also educates readers of the Gammon Press blog on the history of the game, offers backgammon instruction and more.
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Cash game. White owns the cube. White on move.
White to play 2-2.
This problem is an example of a somewhat rare breed, a true prime against prime game. Although we talk about priming games a lot, real priming battle don’t arise all that often. Much more common are positions where one side has a prime and the other just a loose connection of points, or games where one side has a prime but the other is conducting a strong attack.
Cash game. White owns the cube. White on move.
White to play 2-2.
First, let’s try to orient ourselves. White looked like he might get stuck in some sort of miserable ace-point game, but has just thrown a fantastic shot, 2-2, which is so good it actually lets him pursue a few different options. In backgammon, it’s good technique to try to list all the reasonable plays before you start analyzing the merits of any one play. With that goal in mind, let’s see what we can find for candidate plays.
Cash game. White owns the cube. White on roll.
Should White double? If White doubles, should Black take or drop?
In this position, White took an early cube based on his ownership of Black’s 2-point and the fact that Black still had a checker left to escape. After that, the game developed almost perfectly for him. His deuce-point game caused Black to bear in awkwardly, while White’s front position came together and prevented Black’s back checker from escaping. After Black’s last roll (an awkward 4-4), White finally has a clear advantage, although he still trails by 47 pips in the race. Is this the right time to double?
Cash game. Black owns the cube. White on move.
White to play 4-3.
Something a little different this time. Identify the worst of these three plays:
(a) 11/7 5/2
(b) 11/4
(c) 7/4 6/2.
