Important Backgammon Skills For Beginners

As Backgammon Boards editors, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. Backgammon Boards has affiliate and advertising partnerships so we get revenue from sharing this content and from your purchase.

Backgammon is a game that combines fortune and ability. Against misfortune, which is controlled by the dice – you can do nothing but to be skilled. What’s more, in the long run, the player who will make the superior checker play and cube decisions will win. Due to the fortune factor, the best players are expected to lose to the terrible players in a single match, there is nothing they can do about it, it’s a critical and definitive component in backgammon. Yet, in the event that they play a match (up to 5 for example), the one who plays ineffectively and makes consistently the substandard moves, will likely be the one to lose in the end. In other words the better player is more likely to win.

There are a ton of key rules and guidelines that are vital to be fruitful in this game. You should always bear these general principles at the top of the priority list, in light of the fact that during a backgammon game it will regularly help to make the best moves. It is crucial to consider that these strategic and skilled moves sometimes struggle with each other in certain conditions. You should weigh the distinctive elements against each other and choose which are more critical. This is regularly extremely hard to accomplish and even the best players now and even the best players sometimes have great difficulties in this area.

You may also like: Top 5 Recommended Backgammon Books

The Running Game

The running or hustling game technique is the least demanding to execute and understand. The thought is to just move your checkers around the board and bear-off as quick as possible. Utilize this skill when you are clearly ahead in a game.  Try not to hit your adversary and simply focus on moving your checkers as securely as possible without leaving any of your own single checkers open. Do whatever it takes not to leave any checkers in your opponent’s board and consistently move all of them around.  With good fortunes in your dice rolls you will be the more probable player to bear-off first.

A great book to conquer backgammon: Conquering Backgammon – 2nd Edition

The Blocking Game

The main goal in the blocking game technique is to hinder your opponent in your inner-board, permitting you an ideal opportunity to move your checkers into your internal board and after that bear-off.   The most ideal approach to do this is to build a “prime“.  A prime is six back to back points with two or to a greater extent a player’s checkers on them.  This keeps your rival from passing until your prime is broken.  This is a decent methodology for amateurs to ace, yet you ought to know you may leave checkers open to hits early in the game.

The Back Game

The back game is the hardest Backgammon technique to fully understand for most beginners. This method is in a perfect world utilized when you’ve been unfortunate and get yourself route behind in a match game. You hold your checkers back on the board and spread out abandoning them open to hits. This will imply some of your markers will be sent to the bar and permit you to bring them over into play in your adversary’s home-board. Once there you can hit your rival’s checkers and frustrate their advancement incredibly giving you the chance to move your own checkers into a triumphant position. This technique is difficult to master, yet permits you to turn around your adversary’s  advantage very rapidly if played well.

You may also like: Backgammon Strategy Guide – Get Better at Backgammon