Backgammon – Three General Plans
Saturday, 18. April 2026
In very general terms, there are three general tactics employed. You need to be able to hop between techniques quickly as the course of the match unfolds.
The Blockade
This is comprised of building a 6-thick wall of checkers, or at least as deep as you are able to achieve, to block in your opponent’s checkers that are located on your 1-point. This is judged to be the most adequate tactic at the begining of the game. You can create the wall anyplace within your eleven-point and your 2-point and then shuffle it into your home board as the game advances.
The Blitz
This is composed of locking your home board as fast as as you can while keeping your opposer on the bar. e.g., if your opposer tosses an early two and moves one piece from your one-point to your three-point and you then toss a 5-5, you can play 6/1 six/one eight/three eight/three. Your challenger is now in serious dire straits considering that they have 2 checkers on the bar and you have closed half your home board!
The Backgame
This tactic is where you have 2 or higher checkers in your competitor’s inner board. (An anchor is a point consisting of at a minimum two of your pieces.) It must be played when you are extremely behind as it greatly improves your opportunities. The better locations for anchor spots are towards your competitor’s smaller points and either on adjacent points or with one point in between. Timing is important for a powerful backgame: at the end of the day, there’s no reason having 2 nice anchors and a complete wall in your own home board if you are then forced to dismantle this straight away, while your opponent is moving their checkers home, seeing that you don’t have any other spare pieces to move! In this situation, it’s better to have pieces on the bar so that you can maintain your position up until your opposer gives you a chance to hit, so it can be a wonderful idea to try and get your challenger to hit them in this situation!
Posted in Backgammon by Jada