Grant's Puzzles - Backgammon Position of the Week

 How should White play 65 here: It is always nice to attend tournaments and play live backgammon. It is also interesting to see the plays that players talk themselves into. I know that I make blunders, but it is good to remind myself that I am playing human beings, not computers. From a recent tournament, White chose to make a “decisive play”, and hit here 9/3* 8/3: Black will return hits from the bar with 62, 54, 53, 52, 51, 42, 41, 21, 44 and 22 – 18 rolls or 50% of the time. This is only 2 more rolls than the correct play. But the other problem with this play is that Black may enter on your 2 point and then it will be harder to bring your checkers home safely. Even if you manage to tidy up the checkers on your 9 and 8 points, you will still have to clear the checkers on your 13 point. Black could hit two of your checkers here, making it hard for you to get off the gammon. Consider 13/2: Now you will be hit with any 6 as well as 51, 42 and 33 – 16 rolls or 44% of the time...

How should White play 54 here: It is often said that backgammon is a game of balancing risk and reward. You could make the safe play here of 6/1 4/1: The idea behind this play is that you hope to attack next time when you roll better dice. But notice that you have used 2 of your builders to make your 1 point. Now you only have 2 builders to attack with. You are only ahead in the race by 11 pips and if Black rolls any 5 but 51, then they will have completely escaped and control the outfield. If you look at what is likely to happen, Black will either escape or you will be forced to hit loose. You could also roll a perfect number and make your 3 point, but then with your 4 point open, Black will always be threatening to enter and escape. You need to attack now while you still have plenty of builders, so play 7/3* 9/4: Black will hit you with any 4, any 3 and 21. That is 22 numbers but on 14 numbers or 39% of the time Black will stay on the bar and you will have 4 builders for your 2 s...

 How should White play 31 here: The American backgammon author Mary Hickey has a saying “Beware of Captain Obvious”. What she means by that is sometimes there is an obvious play, and the danger is just settling for that and not seeing if there is an even better play. Here the Captain Obvious play is 3/off 3/2: This takes off a checker and leaves Black with no shots. Indeed, this is the move that wins the most games so at DMP this would be the move that you should make. To avoid Captain Obvious, you need to consider the whole board. Black’s board is weak. I would call it a negative board as it has a blot on it which Black may not be able to safety next roll. Because of this, we can increase the amount of Gammons that we win by 5% by playing 4/1* 2/1: Now on 9 rolls Black will stay on the bar. This means you will win more Gammons. The number of Gammons you could win is sometimes more important than playing safely. You win 5% more Gammons here and you are not risking much. If yo...

 How should White play 54 here: In Modern Backgammon, Bill Robertie said “the most efficient use of two checkers is to make a point”. If you followed that philosophy here, you would play 9/4 8/4: The problem with this play is you only have your spares on 2 different points. You have no spares on your 9, 8 or 4 points. This means it will be hard to make additional points unless you roll doubles or leave additional shots. It could also be difficult to get your rear most blot to safety. And Black can hit you from their 13 point without breaking it and leaving blots themselves. Consider 16/11 13/9: This also leaves a blot, but now if Black hits you from your 7 point, unless they roll doubles they will be leaving shots for you. If you are missed it will be far easier to tidy up your blot and make new additional points with it. You have a much more flexible position, with only your 13 point not having spares on it. And you want your 13 point not to have spares as you want to cl...

 How should White play 31 here: It is good to reduce your blot count here, so the correct move must contain 7/6 as you really do not want or need to make your 7 point. You can reduce your blot count to only having one blot by playing 7/6 17/14: But when you look at the position you know that if your next roll is 22 then you must give up one of your inner board points. Next you consider 7/6 18/15: The trouble with this play is that it would be nice to have more return shots from the bar, and you have moved one of your checkers from Black’s 7 point. By leaving a checker there, you will get more shots from the bar if it is hit. Consider 7/6 14/11: Now if Black hits you with 64 or 65 then you will have more return shots from the bar. This position shows the importance of looking at the resulting position. I know I need to do this more. 

 How should White play 66 here: Over the board without this being presented as a problem, most players would simply pay 21/9(2): The problem with this move is that after the roll you will still be behind in the race by 6 pips. This problem shows the value of knowing how to do a Pipcount, but most players do not want to do the Pipcount before every move. If you just counted crossovers, you would see that White needs 13 crossovers to get all the checkers into their inner board while Black only needs 11. Consider the correct move of 21/9 8/2(2): The fact that you will be behind in the race after the roll and Black has 3 inner board blots means that you can make the more aggressive move. If Black were to hit you from their 18 point, even if they covered some of those blots, you would still have return shots from the bar. Even if Black hits you with something like 41 or 61 – you would have return shots from the bar. If you lo...

 How should White play 22 here: Small doubles are always the hardest dice to play as there are so many different candidate moves. For this discussion I will limit it to the top 3 moves. All the themes are there in the various alternatives. You really wanted to hit but the dice did not cooperate, so now you must make the best of the options available. Once you enter bar/23, you do not want to advance the checker on your 23 point as you will still be behind in the race and by staying on the 23 point, you make it harder for Black to put their checkers safely behind you. Your biggest asset in this position is that you have your 5 point and therefore have the stronger board. After the roll you will still be behind in the race, so you would like to hit one of Black’s blots. This position is very tactical, so duplication is important. You need to look at each resulting position, seeing if you can duplicate Black’s good numbers and maximise the pressure you put on Black. Consider...

 How should White play 31 here: If you can hit one of your opponent’s blots, you should always consider it. It may be wrong, but you should always consider. Consider 24/23* 7/4: Black will hit you with 63, 62, 61, 52, 22, 21, 32, 43, 42, 33 and 11. That is 20 rolls or 56% of the time. Consider hitting and making your 21 point anchor with 24/23* 24/21: Now Black will hit you from the bar with any 4, as well as 31, 22 and 11. That is only 15 rolls, but Black will be on your 4 point threatening to anchor there. 15 rolls are a lot of rolls, is there another option? Both moves above do not really put Black under a lot of pressure. Consider not hitting at all with 8/4: Now you are threatening to make a 5 prime, which should scare Black. Black would like to split with a 2, but 2s are duplicated to split and attack on Black’s 4 point. Black’s 4s are duplicated to attack on Black’s 4 point and to cover the blot on the 2 point. Even if Black makes the 4 point with 42, any 2 from you from...