In astonishingly general terms, there are 3 chief strategies employed. You want to be able to hop between game plans quickly as the action of the game unfolds.
The Blockade
This consists of building a 6-deep wall of checkers, or at a minimum as thick as you might manage, to lock in your opponent’s pieces that are located on your 1-point. This is considered to be the most adequate tactic at the begining of the game. You can assemble the wall anywhere inbetween your eleven-point and your two-point and then move it into your home board as the game advances.
The Blitz
This is composed of locking your home board as quick as possible while keeping your opponent on the bar. i.e., if your opponent tosses an early two and moves one piece from your 1-point to your three-point and you then roll a 5-5, you will be able to play 6/1 six/one eight/three eight/three. Your opponent is then in big-time difficulty because they have two pieces on the bar and you have closed half your inner board!
The Backgame
This course of action is where you have two or more checkers in your competitor’s inner board. (An anchor is a position filled by at least 2 of your checkers.) It should be employed when you are significantly behind as it greatly improves your circumstances. The best areas for anchors are near your opponent’s lower points and also on adjacent points or with a single point separating them. Timing is important for an effectual backgame: at the end of the day, there’s no reason having two nice anchors and a complete wall in your own inner board if you are then forced to dismantle this right away, while your competitor is shifting their pieces home, owing to the fact that you don’t have any other extra checkers to shift! In this situation, it’s more tolerable to have pieces on the bar so that you can preserve your position until your opposer provides you an opportunity to hit, so it will be an excellent idea to try and get your opponent to get them in this case!
This entry was posted on May 28, 2019, 8:25 pm and is filed under Backgammon. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.