The Essential Basics of Backgammon Strategies – Part Two

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

As we have dicussed in the previous article, Backgammon is a casino game of ability and good luck. The goal is to move your chips carefully around the game board to your home board and at the same time your opposing player moves their checkers toward their inner board in the opposing direction. With competing player checkers moving in opposite directions there is bound to be conflict and the requirement for specific strategies at particular times. Here are the last two Backgammon tactics to complete your game.

The Priming Game Tactic

If the purpose of the blocking strategy is to slow down the opponent to move her pieces, the Priming Game plan is to absolutely barricade any movement of the opposing player by building a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The opponent’s chips will either get bumped, or result a damaged position if she at all tries to escape the wall. The trap of the prime can be established anywhere between point 2 and point eleven in your half of the board. After you’ve successfully built the prime to stop the movement of your competitor, the competitor doesn’t even get to roll the dice, and you shift your chips and toss the dice again. You’ll be a winner for sure.

The Back Game Strategy

The goals of the Back Game strategy and the Blocking Game technique are very similar – to hinder your opponent’s positions hoping to better your chances of winning, but the Back Game strategy uses seperate tactics to do that. The Back Game technique is generally employed when you are far behind your competitor. To participate in Backgammon with this tactic, you have to control two or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single piece) late in the game. This technique is more challenging than others to employ in Backgammon seeing as it needs careful movement of your checkers and how the chips are relocated is partly the result of the dice toss.