(A) Black to play 5-1.
Black – Pips 153 (+5)
Black to Play 5-1
Taking Risks in a Holding Game
Black – Pips 153 (+5)
Black to Play 5-1
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 153 (+5)
Black to Play 5-1
Leave Your Anchor or Not?
Black – Pips 99 (-6)
Black to Play 5-2
Holding Game Doubles, Part 2
In some earlier posts we talked about doubling in high anchor games, and looked at some typical positions where White held an anchor on the 5-point and Black was trying to cash in on his racing advantage and bring his last checkers home to victory. All of those positions turned out to be takes.
From those examples, you might conclude that almost any 5-point game was a take, regardless of the race. But it’s not quite that simple. In this article we’ll look at some examples where small modifications to the position can produce big changes in the evaluation.
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.
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.
