Replies to opening moves

In article “Backgammon opening moves” we have examined all 15 possible opening moves. In this article we focus on the moves you need to make if when you lost the tossup and you need to react to your opponent’s opening move.

There are 21 possible rolls after each of the 15 opening moves. But don’t worry, we are not going to go in depth to all of those. We could examine all of them in detail just as we did with the opening moves, but we will keep it here as simple as possible.

Note: should you be unfamiliar with backgammon notation, be sure to read our Backgammon notation article before reading on. It’ll help you better understand the content of this article.

Basic principle

In short: Play your reply to your opponent’s opening move as you would play a regular opening move, BUT if you can hit a checker you should nearly always do so. If you can hit two, the better. That’s pretty much about it, we are only going to have a look the doubles in more detail as they can be rolled now the first time as replies.

Playing the doubles

6-6

The best way to play this roll is to make both bar-points, i.e. your 18-point and 7-point. If your opponent has made her bar-point, go and make the other bar-point and your 2-point with 13/7(2) and 8/2(2).

5-5

This is a great roll if your opponent has split his back checkers. If so, attack! You can make two home board points and hit one of your opponent’s checker on the 1-point. Play 8/3(2) and 6/1*(2). If your opponent didn’t split the back checkers go ahead and make your 3-point by moving four men down from your mid-point. Play 13/3(2).

4-4

If you are in a position to hit any checker with this roll, do so and then make a point with the other fours. If hitting is not an option, bring up your back checkers to the 20-point with 24/20(2) and make the 9-point with 13/9(2).

3-3

Similar to 4-4, see if you can hit and if you can, do so. Otherwise you might want to make the 21-point and the 10-point.

2-2

With this roll you would normally make the 4-point with 6/4(2) and your 11-point with 13/11(2). If your opponent has moved a lone checker on his 5-point, use two two’s to hit it with one of your back checker with 24/20* and then go and make your 4-point.

1-1

This roll gives you a great chance to make your 5-point and possibly even hit your opponent’s checker on it. Or, depending where your opponent has split his checkers to you could hit and make your bar-point.

However, if your opponent has split his back checkers to your 4-point you should hit it with 6/4(2). Finally, if your opponent has made the bar point, you should make your 5-point and split your back men - the move would then be 6/5(2) and 24/22.