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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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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.
A lot of backgammon positions are pretty simple: the right play is either forced or completely obvious. Many others involve a clear decision between two very different alternatives. These problems may be hard to solve, but at least the choices are clear.
Some positions, however, involve a lot of possible plays, all of which are somewhat reasonable. These positions can be very tricky, and one of the dangers is overlooking the best play altogether while sorting through the wealth of possibilities. Be alert, and try to enumerate all the plays before starting to rank them.
Some product reviews are hard to write. Do I like this product? Do I really like this product? Can I wholeheartedly recommend it, or do I have a few lingering reservations?
Fortunately, eXtreme Gammon (or ‘XG’ as it’s known in the backgammon world) presents no such problems. It’s the best backgammon software available, and if you’re a serious player (or aspire to be one) you have to have it. Period.
Consider the following problem, which arose in a recent chouette:
