The Essential Basics of Backgammon Tactics – Part Two
Saturday, 9. August 2025
As we dicussed in the previous article, Backgammon is a game of skill and good luck. The goal is to shift your chips safely around the board to your inner board while at the same time your opposition moves their chips toward their inner board in the opposing direction. With competing player pieces heading in opposite directions there is going to be conflict and the requirement for particular strategies at specific times. Here are the last two Backgammon tactics to finish off your game.
The Priming Game Plan
If the purpose of the blocking tactic is to slow down the opponent to shift her chips, the Priming Game plan is to completely stop any movement of the opponent by creating a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The competitor’s pieces will either get bumped, or end up in a damaged position if he/she at all attempts to leave the wall. The ambush of the prime can be established anyplace between point 2 and point eleven in your board. Once you’ve successfully assembled the prime to block the movement of your competitor, your competitor does not even get a chance to roll the dice, that means you shift your chips and roll the dice again. You’ll be a winner for sure.
The Back Game Strategy
The goals of the Back Game plan and the Blocking Game tactic are very similar – to harm your competitor’s positions in hope to improve your chances of winning, but the Back Game plan uses alternate tactics to achieve that. The Back Game tactic is often used when you’re far behind your opponent. To participate in Backgammon with this technique, you have to control 2 or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single checker) late in the game. This plan is more difficult than others to use in Backgammon seeing as it requires careful movement of your chips and how the chips are relocated is partly the outcome of the dice roll.
Posted in Backgammon by Jada