The best way to see how backgammon should be played is to take a look at some actual games. Youll get a feel for what a game looks like, from start to finish, and well introduce some sound principles of playas we go along. Weve also included plenty of diagrams, so you won get lost along the way. If you have a backgammon board, take it out now and set it up as we showed back in Diagram 2-the starting position. Then follow along with the game. Be sure to take the time to actually make the moves on your board -youll find that this greatly enhances your understanding. In our first game, the White pieces are conducted by a player of the old school-conservative and cautious. Black is a player who understands the new dynamic style. 1. Black rolls 4-3: plays 24-point to 20-point and 13point to 10-point. Excellent! Black didn roll one of his best numbers, but he still made the most of his roll. By playing 24 to 20, Black stakes a claim on the 20-point, one of the most valuable points on the board. If White doesn do anything, Black will hope to roll a 4 and make this point next tum. In addition, the checker on the 20-point now looks out over Whites entire outerboard (the points from the 18-point to the 13-point). If White tries to leave a blot in this area, Black will have good chances to hit it. The checker on the 10-point is also usefully placed, increasing the chances that Black will be able to make a blocking point next tum. Take a look: If Black s next roll is a 6-4 or a 6-2, he will be able to make the 4-point. Ifhe rolls a 5-1 or a 5-3, he can make the 5-point. And ifhe rolls a 6-3, he can make the bar (7)-point. Thats five new rolls that play effectively next tum because Black took a small risk this tum. Thats dynamic backgammon: small risks now to earn big rewards later. 2. White rolls 4-1: Plays 12-point to 16-point and 16point to 17-point Diagram 34. White has played 4-1   White, on the other hand, plays very conservatively. While his play is perfectly safe (it leaves no blots), its also completely unconstructive- White is no closer to building a new point or escaping his back men than he was at the beginning of the game. Did White have a better play? I think so. In his position, I would have made this play-19-point to 20-point, hitting Blacks blot, and I-point to 5-point. Take a look at how this move looks: See the difference? White is now attacking both 5-points: Blacks (the 5-point) and Whites (the 20-point). In addition, Black is on the bar, and will have to enter that checker before he can do anything else. Sure, Black may be able to enter and hit White somewhere. But if he doesn , hes in serious trouble, and even ifhe does, so what? The game is just getting started and theres a lot of play to come. At least this way, White has made some progress toward a couple of his goals. Next turn, he might be able to make the 5-point, the 20-point, or both. Now go back to the position in Diagram 34, and well look at Blacks next roll in the actual game. 3. Black rolls 3-1: Plays 8-point to 5-point and 6-point to 5-point, making the 5-point. A nice roll, although notice that Black had many nice rolls in this position. Thats another advantage of Black s dynamic style of play: it creates positions where a lot of rolls play well. When you play in this style, your opponents may complain about how lucky you are. Let them. You concentrate on winning. Blacks roll was so good that you may have noticed that there were a couple of other useful points that he could have made. For instance, he could have used his roll oBI to make the 7-point (with the checkers on the 8-point and IO-point) or the 20-point (by moving up the checker on the 24-point). Why did he pick the 5-point instead of one of these other plays? Lets take the possibilities one by one. He picked the 5point over the 7 -point because, although both are blocking points, the 5-point is also an inner-board point. That means it will help keep White on the bar if Black can score a hit. He picked the 5-point over the 20-point because he feels it will be relatively easy to make the 20point next turn, or, if need be, to run the checker from the 20-point over to Blacks outfield (in the area of the 9,10 and II-points). The 5-point, on the other hand, might be hard to make, since Black only has a few throws each turn which can make it. In this case, with two possible goals, Black chose to make the one that was harder to do, leaving the relatively easy one for later. Thats a good rule to remember. 4. White rolls 5-4: Plays 12-point to 17-point and 12point to 16-point. Diagram 37. White has played 5-4 A bad roll for White, which forces him to leave a blot somewhere. His play is all right, although playing 12point to 2 I-point was also OK. 5. Black rolls 6-4: Plays 20-point to 16-point, hitting Whites blot, and continues on to the 10-point. Diagram 38. Black has played 6-4, hitting A great shot for Black, which accomplishes three objectives at once: hitting White, escaping one of his back checkers, and making a new point. Its hard to do more with a single roll. Whites passive play has led him into serious difficulties. 6. White rolls 3-1: Plays bar to 3-point, and continues on to the 4-point. Remember that when you have a checker on the bar, you must reenter that checker before you can move any other checker. Since White rolled 3-1, the first half of his move had to be one of two plays: either use the 1 to enter, by playing barto I-point, orusethe 3 to enter, by playing bar to 3-point. White chose the latter. That left him with a 1 to play, which he decided to play with the checker he had just entered. Legally, however, he could have used this one with any of his other checkers, had he wanted to. This roll shows the other drawback of being hit. Not only did White lose ground in the race, but he lost the opportunity to use the roll constructively. Normally, he would have used the 3-1 to make the 20-point with checkers from the 19-point and the l7-point, but here he didn have that opportunity. At this point, it should be clear that Black has an advantage in the game. Hes built two new points, the 5-point and the IO-point; hes escaped one of his two back checkers, while White has lost ground and now has three checkers back instead of two; and hes well ahead in the race to come home. Many players might let this opportunity slip by, but not Black! 7. Instead of rolling, Black doubles to 2! Remember what we said in the section on doubling earlier in this book. To double, Black picks up the cube, turns it to the face labelled 2, places it on Whites side of the board, and says,! double. (Sneering is optional.) Now its up to White to drop, and concede one point, or take, and play on with the value of the game doubled. A game would now be worth two points, a gammon, four points, and a backgammon, six points. However, once he has accepted the cube, White cannot be doubled again. He gets to play the game out to the fmish, or until the advantage swings his way and he gets to redouble Black! DOUBLING GUIDELINES When should you offer a double, and when should you take a double? This is one of the most difficult, perhaps the most difficult, decision in backgammon. Doubling and taking doubles requires tremendous judgement and experience, and youll find that the longer you play the game, the more your knowledge of doubling deepens and expands. But here are a few guidelines: o You should be willing to take a double if you have at least a 25% chance of winning the game, and you e unlikely to lose a gammon or a backgammon. This fact comes as a surprise to many people, since at first it seems that you wouldn want to take a double if you e an underdog. Why play for more if you can just give the game up? But thats not the right way to look at the situation. o To see where the 25% number comes from, consider this example: suppose you were in a position that you knew you could win just one time in four. Suppose you sat down to play this position four times against another player, and he started each game by doubling you. Heres what could happen: If you dropped each ofthe four doubles, you would lose four games at one point per game. Net loss: four points. If you took each of the four doubles, you would lose three games and win one. At two points per game, you would lose six points in the three games you lost, and win two points in the one game you won. Net loss: four pointsexactly the same as if you dropped! Thats why 25% is the break-even point for accepting doubles. If you have a better chance than that, you should take, and with worse chances, you drop. o How big a favorite should you be to double? Thats a good question, and theres a lot of disagreement about this question, even among the best players. (Thats part of what makes backgammon such an interesting and exciting game-theres so much that isn yet understood, even among the acknowledged grandmasters.) Most players feel that the side contemplating a double should be at least be a 2-1 favorite, or even a little better. Aggressive players like to double a little earlier than this, while some conservative players try to get very close to the 75% mark before doubling. Now lets get back to our game. We listed Blacks advantages a little while ago. Black feels that the sum total ofthese advantages makes him at least a 2-1 favorite to win the game, so he doubles. What should White do? 8. White Accepts the Double White decides that he can win this position at least 25% of the time, so he takes the double. Why did he think that? Answer-he guessed, based upon his experience in playing positions of this sort. As you play backgammon, you will build up experience and make your own decisions about the strength of certain formations. There are no cut-and-dried formulas for deciding questions of this sort. Players just make their own best judgments. Was White correct? I don think so. Although Blacks game is not yet overwhelmingly strong, White has as yet nothing going for him. I think its too hard for White to turn the game around quickly, and I like to give up such positions. Still, many reasonable players might disagree with this assessment. At any rate, Whites take means we have an interesting game ahead of us. 9. Black rolls 6-2: Plays to-point to 4-point, hitting, and 6-point to 4-point. Blacks second great shot in a row. Now White is really in trouble. There is no disagreement on how to play this roll. Any time you can make an inner-board point and hit your opponent at the same time, you should do so. 10. White rolls 2-2: Plays bar to 2-point, 17-point to 21-point, and 19-point to 21-point. White finally builds an inner-board point, which was a long time coming. In part, this was a result of Whites ultra-conservative opening strategy. Its difficult to build points without being willing to take some risks in the opemng. Although this was a good roll by White, it doesn change the fact that Black has a very big advantage. In fact, if Black were to double in this position, White would have a mandatory pass. 11. Black Rolls 5-4: Plays 24-point to IS-point. Not an especially good roll. Black would have liked a 64, which he would have played 8-point to 2-point and 6point to 2-point, making a point on Whites head, or perhaps a 6-3, which he would have played 13-point to 7point and IO-point to 7-point, making a 5-point prime. His roll of 5-4 is not completely useless, however. By running to the l5-point, he is preparing to escape his last checker. DUPLICATION STRATEGY This play also illustrates a principle known as duplication. Heres how it works. White would like to hit one of the two Black blots in the position. The Black checker on the l5-point can be hit by the White checkers on the 12point, but White needs to throw a 3 on one die or the other to hit. Now look at the Black checker on the IO-point. That can be hit by the White checkers on the I-point and 2-point, but only if White throws a particular combination of numbers. The only combinations that will work are 6-3 (to hit from the I-point) and 5-3 (to hit from the 2-point). Notice that these two rolls both contain a 3, the same number that White needed to hit from the 12-point. In backgammon parlance, we say that Whites 3s are duplicated. He needs the same number to hit on one side of the board as the other, which ensures that most of Whites dice combinations (all those that don contain a 3 on either die) won hit. Thats good news for Black, bad news for White. If, while playing a game, you can duplicate your opponents good numbers as much as possible, youll ensure that he has fewer useful numbers to play. In the long run, that means more winning games for you, and fewer for him. 12. White rolls 6-4: Plays 17-point to 23-point and 19point to 23-point. White misses his shot, but is able to build another point inhis inner board. However, this was a costly miss. Black has now escaped his last rear checker, one of the key goals of successful strategy. Blacks also far ahead in the race, so to win, White will have to hit a last-ditch shot as Black brings his men home. The next few moves should be a period of consolidation. Black will try to bring his men home safely, hopefully making his 3-point and 7 -point in the process. White will fill in the gaps in his own home board, hoping to hit a shot much later in the game. 13. Black rolls 6-3: Plays 13-point to 7-point and 10point to 7-point. An excellent play by Black. Notice that this is not the safest play. Black could have played I5-point to 6-point, or I5-point to 9-point and I3-point to IO-point, either of which would have left White fewer chances to hit a Black blot than the play he made. Black was willing to leave White a direct shot at his checker on the I5-point because he understands the tremendous power ofthe five-point block (or prime) that he created with his play. Suppose that White hits the blot on the I5-point next urn. How is the game likely to go from that point? Black will soon reenter his checker on Whites inner board. White may be able to hit again, but Black will quickly escape. Meanwhile, Whites three checkers on the I-point and 2point are stuck. White will need to roll some aces and deuces to reach the 3-point, then several sixes to jump over the five-point prime. Its not very likely thatthis will happen, so Black feels that the risk that White will roll a three, hit him, and somehow win from that point is justified. 14. White Rolls 55: Plays 12-point to 22-point with two men. Diagram 45. White has played 5-5 To the novice, this might look like a good roll. White advances 20 pips in the race and makes an inner board point besides. In fact, its a poor roll, not just because White missed the blot on the I5-point, but because White is advancing too quickly. But you ask, Ifbackgammon is basically a racing game, how can anyone be advancing too quickly? The faster, the better, right? Not quite. Backgammon is much complex than just a simple racing game. Thats part of what makes it so fascinating. Heres what I mean: ifboth sides had broken all contact between their checkers, and were just racing home with their men, then big rolls would always be better than small rolls. But if one side is trapped, as White is in this position, and is waiting for the chance to hit a shot later in the game, then he wants to roll small numbers at this stage of the game. He wants to make up the points in his board gradually, so that his home board is fully made up just as he hits the shot he is waitingfor. Then, he can keep the checker he hit on the bar while he brings the remainder of his men around to join them. If he moves too quickly at this stage of the game, his board will form and then disintegrate before he hits a shot, and he will lose anyway. (In fact, well see that very scenario happen in this game.) Notice that Black could have used this roll to make the 2point (8-point to 2-point and 6-point to 2-point) but this play is much stronger. He has now completed a full 6point prime, one of the chief goals of middle game strategy. Notice that no matter what numbers White rolls, there is no way his men on the I-point and 2-point can escape Blacks blockade so long as Blacks prime remains intact. Since the largest number on a die is six, theres no roll that will hop over a 6-point prime. White is trapped for the time being. Does this mean White has no chance to win? No, although his chances are now quite small. Since Black has to bring all his men into the home board in order to bear off, he will have to break up his prime in the near future. This process is called rolling the prime home, and how well Black performs this task affects his winning chances substantially. 16. White rolls 4-3: Plays 17 -point to 20-point and 17point to 21-point. Another straightforward play. Blacks next goal is to make the 3-point, ifnecessary giving up the 9-point in the process. Ifhe makes the 3-point, he will have a full sixpoint prime from the 3-point to the 8-point, so the 9-point will be superfluous. 18. White rolls 5-3: Plays 17-point to 20-point, and 19point to 24-point. White has achieved a strong home board. If Black didn have a prime, and White were in position to hit a blot, his home board might easily keep that checker trapped long enough for White to win. Unfortunately, theres no blot to be seen, and Whites board will not last long. 19. Black rolls 6-3: Plays 9-point to 3-point and 6point to 3-point. A great shot. Black rolls his prime forward one pip. Blacks blot on the 9-point is quite safe, as there are no sevens on the dice! 20. White rolls 5-4: Plays 19-point to 24-point and 19point to 23-point. There goes the neighborhood as Billy Horan (one of backgammons strongest grandmasters) is fond of saymg. 21. Black rolls 3-2: Plays 9-point to 7-point and 5point to 2-point, hitting. Black hits, even though White could roll a two and hit him right back. Bold play? Not at all. Since Black has a full 6-point prime, White can never escape. It may take Black some time to enter a checker from the bar ifhe is hit, but it won matter, since his prime cannot break while he is on the bar. 22. White rolls 5-4: No play. White can move, since Black owns both the 5-point and the 4-point. Remember that if you are on the bar, you must enter the checker before you can move any other checkers. In this case, White needed to roll either a one or a two on the dice to enter, since those are the only open points in Blacks home board. 23. Black rolls 6-6: Plays 13-point to 7-point, and 8point to 2-point with two men. Cannot play fourth six. When you roll a double, you get to play that number four times, if possible. In this case, Black has only three legal plays of a six. The checkers on the 7 -point cannot move six pips, because White owns the I-point. In backgammon lingo, his sixes are killed. 24. White rolls 4-1: Plays bar to I-point, and 20-point to 24-point. A forced play. White has managed to enter from the bar, but loses another home board point in the process. 25. Black rolls 4-3: Plays 7-point to 3-point, and 7point to 4-point. Remember that Black can bear off any men until all his checkers are in the home board (points 1 through 6). His last task before the bearoff is to bring the four checkers on the 7 -point into his home board somewhere. With this roll, he brings in two of the checkers. 26. White rolls 5-3: Plays 20-point to 23-point with the 3; cannot playa 5. White has no legal way to playa 5, since his checkers on the I-point are blocked, and there are no checkers on the other side of the board that can move five spaces. In that case, he only has to playa 3, which he does. 27. Black rolls 5-5: Plays two checkers from 7 -point to 2-point, then bears off two checkers from the 5-point. Black plays his fIrst two fIves from the 7-point to the 2point. Once he has done this, he has all 15 checkers in the inner board, so he is entitled to start bearing off checkers. With his two remaining fIves, he removes the two checkers on his 5-point. 28. White rolls 6-2: Plays I-point to 9-point. Now that Black has broken his 7-point, White is once again free to move sixes. 29. Black rolls 6-5: Bears off a checker from the 6point; no legalS to play. Look at this position carefully to make sure you understand what has happened. Black used the six to bear off one of his checkers from the 6-point. He would normally use the 5 to bear off a checker from the 5-point, but there are no more checkers on the 5-point. If White didn still own the I-point, Black could use his 5 to play 6-point to I-point, but thats impossible here. So Black has no way to play the 5, and gives up that part of his roll. 30. White rolls 3-2: Pays 9-point to 14-point. Too bad! White had some winning chances if he could have hit Blacks blot by throwing any number containing a 5, or the combination number 4-1. As is, he has nothing better than to bring his checker in the outfield closer to home. 31. Black rolls 6-5: Bears off a checker from the 6point and a checker from the 4-point.   Look at this play closely and compare it to Blacks last play. These situations cause some confusion for newcomers to the game. This turn, Black uses the 6 to bear a checker off the 6-point, as you might expect. Then, since Black has a 5 left to play and no checkers on the 5-point or 6-point he is able to use the 5 to bear off from the next highest point, in this case the 4-point. Why couldn he bear off from the 4-point last turn (move 29)? Because in that case he still had a checker on a point higher than the 4-point. You can only bear off from a point with a higher number than the point itself if all the higher points have been cleared of checkers. Study these two examples carefully, and youll avoid any confusion at the table. 32. White rolls 3-2: Plays 14-point to 19-point. White is piddling along. Not only is he very unlikely to win the game, but there is now a real possibility that he could lose a gammon. Remember, if your opponent bears all his men off before you bear off any men, you lose a gammon, or twice the value ofthe doubling cube. Since the cube is now on 2, White will lose four points if he loses a gammon! 33. Black rolls 6-2: Bears off a checker from the 4point, and plays 4-point to 2-point.   Since Black has no checkers on the 5-point or the 6-point, he can use any 4,5, or 6 on the dice to bear off from the 4-point. You may ask, Why didn he take two men off, by using the 2 to bear off from the 2-point? That would have been perfectly legal. However, it would have left a vulnerable blot on the 4-point, which White could then have hit ifhe rolled any 3. Black avoided this possibility by picking up the blot on the 4-point. 34. White rolls 4-3: Plays I-point to 8-point. White has little choice on his moves any longer. He must start running his back checkers out to try to avoid losing a gammon. Why not move both back men, by playing I-point to 5point and I-point to 4-point? Because White still has chances of hitting one of Blacks blots, which would still give him some chances of winning the game. If Blacks next roll is 6-5, for example, he will have to bear two men off the 3-point, leaving a blot there which White could hit. If you take a look at Blacks position, you will find that almost half his numbers leave a shot next turn. (Count them!) 35. Black rolls 6-1: Bears a checker off the 3-point with the six, and plays 2-point to I-point, hitting White. Diagram 65. Black has played 6-1 Black had to leave another shot (his only other legal play with the ace was to play 3-point to 2-point), so he made the most aggressive play, putting White on the bar. 36. White rolls 4-2: Plays bar to 4-point and continues on to the 6-point.   Whites winning chances are now gone. Theres no way he can win the race, now matter how well he rolls or how poorly Black rolls. But we continue playing, because its not decided whether Black will win a single game (worth 2 points) or a gammon (worth 4 points). 37. Black rolls 2-2: Bears four men off the 2-point. A great roll for Black, and now the gammon looks quite likely. 38. White rolls 5-1: Plays 8-point to 13-point, and 6point to 7-point. Take a look at that ace that White just played. It may look insignificant, but that accurate play might have saved White two more points! Remember what we said before in our chapter about the rules-if one side bears off all its checkers while the other side has no checkers off and at least one checker in the other sides home board, thats a triple game, or backgammon. With the cube on two, a backgammon is worth six points! So by moving that last checker out of Blacks inner board, White has avoided the possibility oflosing a triple game. 39. Black rolls 6-3: Bears off two men from the 3point. Forced play. 40. White rolls 4-4: Plays 7-point to 19-point with three fours, and 13-point to 17-point with the last four. That last roll moved a lot of freight, but not quite enough to save the gammon. In the final position, Black doesn even have to roll. Even his smallest number (2-1) will bear off his last two checkers, so he just claims a gammon, and writes plus4 on the scoresheet. Theres our first look at a real backgammon game. Play through it two or three times for practice. Youll find that your knowledge of the backgammon rules is greatly strengthened. Also, some of the plays in the game, which may have looked strange at first glance, will now start to make more sense to you. Sample Game Summary What really happened in this game? Black made several dynamic plays in the early game, and White responded passively. As Blacks plan came to fruition, White found himself trapped in what is known as an ace-point gamea position in which one player is trapped on their opponents ace-point, hoping to hit a shot in the late stages of the game. As you play backgammon, youll see a fair number of ace-point games, and youll eventually learn to play them properly from either side. Now lets move on and look at a completely different type of game.