As we dicussed in the previous article, Backgammon is a game of ability and good luck. The aim is to shift your checkers carefully around the game board to your home board and at the same time your opponent moves their pieces toward their inside board in the opposing direction. With competing player checkers heading in opposing directions there is bound to be conflict and the need for specific techniques at particular times. Here are the two final Backgammon techniques to round out your game.
The Priming Game Plan
If the purpose of the blocking tactic is to hamper the opponents ability to move their pieces, the Priming Game plan is to completely barricade any movement of the opponent by constructing a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The competitor’s pieces will either get bumped, or result a damaged position if he ever attempts to leave the wall. The trap of the prime can be setup anywhere between point 2 and point 11 in your board. As soon as you’ve successfully constructed the prime to stop the activity of your competitor, your opponent doesn’t even get to roll the dice, and you move your pieces and toss the dice yet again. You’ll win the game for sure.
The Back Game Plan
The aims of the Back Game technique and the Blocking Game strategy are similar – to harm your competitor’s positions in hope to improve your odds of succeeding, but the Back Game plan relies on different techniques to achieve that. The Back Game strategy is commonly employed when you are far behind your competitor. To play Backgammon with this strategy, you have to hold 2 or more points in table, and to hit a blot (a single piece) late in the game. This plan is more complex than others to play in Backgammon seeing as it needs careful movement of your chips and how the chips are moved is partly the result of the dice toss.