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.

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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.

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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.

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In the last blog post we looked at some hitting problems in the early game. In this post we’ll look at a couple of more examples where hitting is one possibility.

When you have a chance to hit on your opponent’s side of the board in the early game, it’s usually a pretty easy choice. Gaining a lot of ground in the race, advancing your back checkers, and taking away at least half your opponent’s roll are so important that such hits are usually routinely correct, and even when wrong are rarely wrong by much.

Hitting on your own side of the board is more problematic. Merely hitting is no longer enough of a rationale. Here are some of the other questions you need to ask:

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