Cash game, center cube. Black to play 6-1.

This position is somewhat unusual. We have a roughly balanced middle game in which both sides have moderately strong home boards. Black has only one man back, and as a result White trails in the pip count by 15 pips (136 to 121).

White’s roll, 6-1, is awkward since he has no great six. Moving off the midpoint leaves a shot. Moving off the 24-point creates two blots and breaks his defensive anchor. The only sensible play that involves moving from the 7-point or 8-point is the loose hit, 8/1*, which doesn’t accomplish much. Nonetheless, White does have to pick one choice from this unappetizing situation.

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Cash game, center cube, White on roll.

Part (a): White to play 4-3.

Part (b): White to play 5-1.

Both sides have anchors on the opposing 3-points, and both sides have established a few points in front of the enemy anchor. I like to call these ‘Block versus Block’ positions, to distinguish them from the better-known ‘Prime versus Prime’ positions.

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Here are three problems the early stages of a long match. Try your hand and see how you do.

(A) Match, score 0-0 to 17, center cube.

White to play 3-1.

(B) Match, White leads 1-0 to 17, center cube.

White to play 5-4.

(C) Match, White leads 1-0 to 17, center cube.

Should White double? Should Black take if doubled?

Position (A): This one should have been pretty easy. When you have a 5-prime with a checker trapped behind it and not at the edge, your game plan is to make a 6-prime, and the easiest way to do that is usually to slot the prime from the back, with the idea of covering next turn. White should therefore see this as a pretty good roll and just play 13/9. The play has the added bonus of duplicating Black’s aces, since he now needs ones to hit and ones to get to the edge of the prime.

Hitting with 6/2* is a major blunder. White needs the 3-point or the 9-point to complete a 6-prime, and he only has three checkers that can participate in that fight. Playing 6/2* effectively burns one of those checkers, since the 2-point has no importance yet and White has no need for a tempo hit.

Position (B): A 6-6 on the second roll of the game is usually a great shot, giving White a lead in the race plus a couple of good points. The follow-up, however, can be tricky. With a 5-4 on the next turn, the best play is usually breaking off the anchor with 18/13/18/14. When White doesn’t get hit, he’s got plenty of builders and spares and a good chance of capitalizing on his racing lead.

Attacking with 8/3* 7/3 looks appealing at first glance, but it’s not as strong as you might think. Black has 12 immediate hits (52, 56, 43, 46, 26 and 16) that catch up in the race, plus 5-4 as a great anchoring number. Even when Black doesn’t immediately hit, the game frequently evolves into a holding game where White wants to get off his anchor on the 18-point but can’t.

Position (C): This position is tricky over the board because the solution depends on just how you ‘see’ the situation. If you see this as just a blitz, then it’s clearly not a double. White doesn’t even have a checker in the air and Black just has a 2-point board.

But if you see this through the lens of Joe Sylvester’s Position-Race-Threat matrix, then it looks very different. White leads in the race by 25 pips, 134-159. His position is better, with an extra inner point on his side and a strong anchor on Black’s side. White has threats, with a bunch of numbers to make the 4-point and other numbers that put two checkers in the air. His position is better and it’s threatening to get better still, maybe by a lot. Looked at this way, it’s an easy double and Black has the tough decision. He can take because so far he’s only facing a 2-point board and the threats are not crushing.

(A) Cash game, center cube.

Should White double? Should Black take if doubled?

(B) Assume White doubles and Black takes. White to play
(b1) 55
(b2) 33
(b3) 53

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Slotting is an easy idea to understand in the opening. When we slot the 5-point with an opening 2-1, we threaten to make a very strong point while unstacking a big stack. Since our opponent has no board, getting hit is just a minor inconvenience. Although it’s not a hugely correct play (splitting our back men is almost as good), it’s not a hard play to make because the downside seems pretty small.

Slotting in the middle game or the endgame is very different. Now your opponent almost certainly has a reasonable home board, so the cost from being hit is much greater. It’s also unlikely that you still have a stacked position at this point, so unstacking probably isn’t a big goal.

With a hit being more expensive and unstacking not so important, we’ve knocked out two of the three pillars supporting an early slot, and we’re reduced to just one: the value of the point itself. When we slot in the middle game, the point needs to be really important, and the chance of making it cleanly without slotting not so good. There is, however, a new factor affecting a middle game slot: the cube. A slot followed by a miss from your opponent may give you a good double, which in some cases is enough to tip the play in favor of slotting.

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In the 1970s, the New Yorkers invented a term for the new style of backgammon they were playing, a style based upon aggressive hitting and slotting. They called it pure play. The essence of pure play was the willingness to take risks in the race to build a crushing prime quickly. If the plays worked, you had a winning prime. If your opponent got lucky and hit you a few times, you just had to outplay him in the resulting back game/holding game. (Since the top players played these complex positions very well, this was usually no problem.)

Cash game, center cube.

Black to play 3-2.

While they were naming their own style, the New Yorkers also coined a name for the opposite style – the beginner style of playing safe and stacking up your checkers. They called it playing squat.

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