Hypergammon strategy

To a large extent Hypergammon is about luck. You are trying to run your tree men to your home board to bear them off while trying to avoid getting hit by your opponent. It might sound easy but it in reality it can be anything but. There are, however, a few working hypergammon strategies out there and we present one that might just give you the edge at the hypergammon table.

If you don’t know what Hypergammon is, before reading on make sure you have read the Hypergammon introduction article.

Hypergammon strategy elements

So, you’ve got three checkers against three checkers. Not much to do except rolling the dice and hope for the best, right? Well, no. Contrary to common belief there are more refined strategy elements you can utilise also in hypergammon, namely duplication and minimizing the probability of getting hit. The key to hypergammon success in the long run, however, is common sense.

Basic strategy - the key to hypergammon success

Hypergammon is not rocket science and it is allowed to use your brains! A few obvious guidelines are pretty much all it takes. To make it easy for you we have listed those below:

1. Hit!
2. Focus on making an advanced outer board point.
3. Don’t break your outer board point until it’s safe to do so.
4. Roll large doubles.

Hit!

Unless you are at bear-off and hitting your opponent would cause more trouble than advantages, you need to hit your opponent. This is real must at mid-game when both players are trying to gain control over their outer boards. Because there are so few checkers available already one checker that can’t be used for a turn or two to make points is serious setback for a player. So no mercy.

Focus on your outer board

A key element in hypergammon to secure victory is to be able to make a point as far on the outer board as possible. In order to do that the early stages of the game should focus on brining up your men to positions that allow you to make a point on your outer board. And to re-emphasize: the further the better.

Many hypergammon games witness a fierce fight over the outer board control and checkers can be hit on several turns in a row. That’s just part of the game and partially is what makes hypergammon so much fun.

Don’t break your advanced point unless necessary

You don’t want to start running your men to your home board while there is a good chance that you might need to hit your opponent’s checker(s). If you do hit and your guys are vulnerable you can easily find yourself in square one or worse; you might have one checker you need to run all the way across the board while your opponent is there waiting to hit you again. So you would normally want to bear-in only once the game enters the final race stage.

Roll large doubles

Once you enter the race stage the only thing you can do is to hope that your roll a couple of large doubles. They certainly will make your bear-in easier and will almost certainly win you the game. Doubles are also very helpful in bringing your outer board point forward without breaking it. Generally the player rolling more doubles will win the game.

Advanced hypergammon strategy

By following the above explained hypergammon basic strategy elements you’ll get far, no doubt. In order to maximize your chances you can apply a couple more advanced strategies: duplication and minimizing the probability of getting hit.

Duplication in hypergammon

Duplication is a term to describe a strategy by which you try to minimize the number of good rolls for your opponent. Let’s look at the diagram below. Say it’s White to play and he rolls 6-4. With this he could run one of the checkers from the 19-point past two of Black’s checkers and leave it only 2 pips away from the last one. Not bad, but not too good either - White would leave 2 blots for hitting with relative ease. Alternatively, White could also run his back man all the way to the 12-point, but again he would gain nothing with Black’s checkers 5 and 2 pips away.

The best move for White is to use duplication and play 6-4 with 19/13 and 22/18. This minimizes Black’s options because he would need a 3 and 4 to hit but those are exactly the same numbers he would need to make either the 10 or 14-point. Hitting the White’s checker on the 13-point with the 7-point checker would require a six but that would likely leave an easy hit for White the next turn. If Black is lucky and he rolls e.g. 4-2 and decides to make the 14-point instead of hitting, white has a very good chance to make the 13-point next turn.

That’s duplication at it’s best and it can be very useful in Hypergammon. Although tricky at times, when you manage to create a duplication situation you really are giving a hard time for your opponent. A hypergammon game can be lost after one wrong decision and when you force your opponent to make a choice between two good options he will definitely think twice before making up his mind.

You can read more about duplication in our Duplication article.

Probability of hitting

Because in hypergammon you will often need to navigate your checkers through your opponent’s “minefield” it is important for you to understand what the chances are of your men getting hit at any given situation. That will help you decide to make the safest move.

If you look at the table below, it’ll show you the probability of hitting a direct shot when when it is a given amount of pips (points) away. It is obvious that the the greates chances of getting hit are when you are 1-6 points from your opponent’s checker. Further than that you are relatively safe.

Points away	Chance of hitting
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 and above	11/36 12/36 14/36 15/36 15/36 17/36 6/36 6/36 5/36 3/36 2/36 3/36 1/36	31% 33% 39% 42% 42% 47% 17% 17% 14% 8% 6% 8% 3%

So, from this we can conclude two things:

1. If you leave a shot within 6 points from your opponent, leave it as close to him as possible.
2. If you leave a shot more than 6 points away from your opponent, leave it as far away as possible.Obviously in a fast-paced game like hypergammon it is not always possible to follow these guidelines. For example in the beginning of the game you will also need to pay attention how you position your checkers so that you can make a point on your outer board. But in situations where your checker got hit and you need to bring it towards your home board, keep these guidelines in mind.

Conclusion

So it is clear that hypergammon relies heavily on luck. Three checkers is not much to begin with and there isn’t that much room for creative play - you need to make the best out of what you get. But just as in any money game, it’s not about winning all hypergammon games but winning more often than losing. Just use the stuff in this article and we are pretty sure you’ll be okay.

Play hypergammon at BackgammonMasters.