Backgammon Strategy

Beginners often wonder whether backgammon has any real strategy. It can look like a game of rolling the dice and doing whatever the numbers allow.

Luck does play a part, and anyone can win a single game. Yet some players win far more than their share over hundreds of games. What they have is a sound strategy: a set of goals and a sense of which one matters most at each moment. This article introduces the core ideas.

The three big goals

Most of basic backgammon strategy comes down to three goals.

1. Hit blots

Hitting your opponent's blots is valuable for two reasons.

First, backgammon is at heart a race. A hit checker goes to the bar and has to start its journey around the board again, so your opponent loses the pips that checker had already covered, often a lot of them.

Second, a hit takes away part of your opponent's next turn. They must use one of their numbers to enter before they can do anything else, and the number left over may not be the one they wanted.

Early in the game a good hit is very often the best move, and two hits on the same turn can be crushing. If you already hold several points in your home board, your opponent may fail to enter one or both checkers, and you get to keep building while they wait.

Hitting is not automatic, though. Hitting deep in your board, or leaving several return shots, can backfire. As you improve you will learn to weigh a hit against the alternatives.

2. Make points

When you cannot hit, make points. A made point, two or more of your checkers together, is safe from hits and blocks your opponent at the same time. The most useful points are in and just in front of your home board: they make entering harder, block the opponent's back checkers, and are well placed for the bear-off.

In the opening stages your 5-point is the most important point to make. It blocks the opponent's back checkers, it is a home-board point a hit checker cannot enter on, and it gives your own checkers a strong landing spot. The next most valuable points are your 4-point and your bar point (7-point). Holding the 5-, 4- and bar points together with your starting 6-point makes it very hard for your opponent's back checkers to get out. Points in a row form a prime, and a full prime of six points cannot be passed. Read more in Priming Games.

3. Free your back checkers

While both players race to make their best points, do not forget your own back checkers. Picture a game in which you have made a fine 5-point, but your opponent holds their 5-point and bar point and you have not moved your back checkers at all. They may stay trapped for a long time, you fall behind in the race, and the game slips away.

When a roll gives you no good hit and no good point, use it to move your back checkers forward. The usual method is to split them, moving one up first and the other later, and try to make an anchor on the opponent's 5-point or 4-point. An early anchor keeps your back checkers from being stuck on the ace point. Splitting carries risk, but early in the game a hit costs relatively little, and getting out is rarely possible without taking some chances.

Bringing it together

The three goals often pull in different directions, and skill in backgammon means knowing which to put first. A rough order of thinking on each roll:

As the game goes on, other ideas join these three: the pip count, timing, and the doubling cube. For the first turns, see Early Game Strategy.

To sum up

The best way to learn this balance is to play a lot and review your games. Above all, accept that backgammon requires risk. Playing too safe loses slowly; choosing the right risks wins.