As we dicussed in the previous article, Backgammon is a casino game of ability and luck. The aim is to move your chips safely around the game board to your inside board and at the same time your opposing player moves their checkers toward their inside board in the opposing direction. With opposing player pieces heading in opposite directions there is bound to be conflict and the need for specific strategies at specific times. Here are the 2 final Backgammon tactics to round out your game.
The Priming Game Tactic
If the purpose of the blocking strategy is to slow down the opponent to move their pieces, the Priming Game tactic is to absolutely block any activity of the opposing player by constructing a prime – ideally 6 points in a row. The competitor’s pieces will either get bumped, or end up in a bad position if he/she at all attempts to escape the wall. The ambush of the prime can be established anywhere between point two and point 11 in your half of the board. Once you’ve successfully built the prime to stop the activity of your competitor, your competitor doesn’t even get to toss the dice, and you shift your chips and toss the dice again. You will be a winner for sure.
The Back Game Tactic
The aims of the Back Game strategy and the Blocking Game tactic are similar – to harm your competitor’s positions with hope to better your chances of succeeding, but the Back Game tactic utilizes alternate tactics to achieve that. The Back Game strategy is commonly employed when you’re far behind your opponent. To play Backgammon with this tactic, you need to hold 2 or more points in table, and to hit a blot late in the game. This tactic is more challenging than others to employ in Backgammon because it needs careful movement of your chips and how the chips are relocated is partially the outcome of the dice roll.