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Backgammon guide

Backgammon best practices

Tips for playing well, the most useful first.

  1. Make points, not blots. Two checkers on a point can’t be hit, and they block your opponent.
  2. Your 5-point is the best point to own. An opening 3–1 makes it: 8 to 5 and 6 to 5.
  3. An opening 4–2 makes your 4-point, and 6–1 makes your 7-point, the bar. Other openers bring a checker down to build with, or split your back checkers.
  4. Hit when it helps. A hit checker goes to the bar, loses its whole trip, and must come back in before anything else moves.
  5. Build points side by side. Six in a row is a prime: nothing can get past it.
  6. Move your back checkers up before your opponent’s home board fills, or they get trapped behind it.
  7. Count the pips: how far each side still has to travel. Ahead, break contact and race. Behind, keep checkers back to hit a late blot.
  8. Far behind, holding two points in your opponent’s home board? That’s a back game: wait for a shot. It’s hard to play, so use it to rescue a game, not as a plan.
  9. Bearing off with no contact, take off a checker with every die you can. While a hit is still possible, play safe first and leave no lone checker in reach.
  10. If you can’t win, save the gammon. Bear off one checker and the loss counts 1, not 2.
  11. In a match, double when you’re clearly ahead but could still lose. Wait until you’re sure, and they simply pass.
  12. Take a double when you’d still win about one game in four. Less than that, pass and keep the points.
  13. No one can double in the Crawford game. In the next game, the side behind should double at once.