Winning at Backgammon

Winning a Gammon

Good strategy and style can be learned by playing alternate game actions in your head during mid game. For instance think about your preferred play and before you make the move stop and consider all the alternative play actions you can take. You do not need to play the other move, but taking time to consider other options can broaden your mid-game backgammon play.

You can decide between different defensive and offensive strategies, blocking, hitting, playing it loose or tight. Eventually the other mid-game backgammon moves will affect your regular moves. Sometimes outrageous plays that you would not normally consider possible lead to opportunities that can be used to win a backgammon game.

Managing Goals by Mid-Game Backgammon

Winning a gammon game occurs, when you have finished bearing off all of your checkers, while your opponent still has not borne off any checkers. This kind of win gives you double the score of the doubling cube.

Winning a backgammon game happens, after you finish bearing off all of your checkers, while your opponent still had one or more checkers in your home board or on the bar, and has not borne off any checkers yet. This means you win three times the value of the doubling cube.

A common example of a gammon game occurs when you have a six prime, and you block one or more of your opponent's checkers behind it. In this case the leading backgammon player needs to ensure that his checkers are not hit upon, and he also needs to remain blocking the opponent as long as possible, so as to ensure he doesn't manage to bear off.

Avoid Losing a Gammon

When you feel you might lose a gammon game, you can use a few simple techniques, in order to save your game and lose less points.

- Do not move inside your backgammon home board. In case you are far away with your pip count, you should take advantage of every pip to advancing the checkers behind on the board, and not waste your pips moving to the five point or lower.

- Try to move your backgammon checkers to different quarters of the board. This will advance your checkers gradually, and make the best use off of your pips.

- Avoid placing two or more checkers in one point. This is to take the most use out of different dice scores.

Every backgammon player needs to know what are the best points on the board that he needs to reach, in order to get an edge in the game.

In the beginning of the backgammon game, each player has two rows of 5 checkers, and one row of 3 checkers. This means that the backgammon pieces are centralized in specific places on the backgammon board, and have not yet been spread to the strategic points along the board.

In other words, in the start of the game both players compete for the best position on the backgammon board. They need to try to reach this position as quickly as possible. There are specific backgammon points that give players an edge in every backgammon game.