As we dicussed in the last article, Backgammon is a game of skill and luck. The aim is to shift your pieces safely around the board to your inner board and at the same time your opposition moves their pieces toward their inner board in the opposing direction. With competing player chips heading in opposing directions there is going to be conflict and the requirement for particular strategies at specific instances. Here are the 2 final Backgammon strategies to round out your game.
The Priming Game Strategy
If the goal of the blocking strategy is to hamper the opponents ability to shift their pieces, the Priming Game strategy is to absolutely stop any movement of the opponent by constructing a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The opponent’s checkers will either get bumped, or end up in a bad position if he ever attempts to escape the wall. The ambush of the prime can be established anyplace between point two and point 11 in your board. Once you have successfully built the prime to prevent the activity of your competitor, the competitor does not even get a chance to roll the dice, that means you move your pieces and toss the dice again. You’ll be a winner for sure.
The Back Game Tactic
The objectives of the Back Game tactic and the Blocking Game strategy are very similar – to hurt your competitor’s positions in hope to improve your odds of winning, but the Back Game strategy uses alternate tactics to achieve that. The Back Game tactic is generally used when you are far behind your competitor. To participate in Backgammon with this strategy, you need to control 2 or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single checker) late in the game. This strategy is more difficult than others to employ in Backgammon because it needs careful movement of your pieces and how the chips are relocated is partly the result of the dice roll.