Position 345

 How should White play 53 here?

There are no prizes for playing bar/20 with the 5.

Consider the move that I expect most players would make, 8/5 with the 3:

This move leaves no extra blots, and you might be tempted to make this move as Black does have a stronger board and will hit loose if they roll a 3 or 1.

So why is this move wrong? Note that White is behind in the race by 28 pips after the roll. That is a lot of pips, and it means that you cannot win the game by winning the race unless you roll a lot of high doubles. The most likely way that you will win the game is to prime your opponent.

In order to prime your opponent, you would really like to make your 7 point, and this does not create a new builder to create your 7 or 9 points, instead it strips your 8 point so that if you rolled 61, although you would make your 7 point, you would have to give up your 8 point to make it.

Consider bar/20 13/10:

A lot of players would reject this move, because they think that Black will try to attack their blot on Black’s 5 point, and they do not want an outfield blot . They fear that blot could be hit and increase their chances of being gammoned. This logic is sound, in positions where you do not already lose a lot of Gammons, and here because you have so many checkers outside your home board, you will lose many Gammons anyway.

Because this move increases your chances of winning, you actually lose 2% less Gammons.

You need to play to win, and because you are behind in the race, your most viable game plan is to prime.


If we move 4 checkers back to Blacks 13 point, now you will be ahead in the race by one pip after the roll.

Now that you are ahead in the race, if you simply escape your back checker, you can win the game. This means that you do not need to prime to win, so you should play the more conservative bar/20 8/5.

Backgammon is the race, and having a good idea of where you are in the race is very important. Even just counting crossovers will help you determine that you are significantly behind in the original position.

Learning to pip count will help you not just in racing positions but in contact positions as well.


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