Cash game, center cube. Should White double? Should Black take if doubled? This position is another example of our old friend, the “Action Double”. We’ve seen one of these before, in the blog post of September 1, 2023. Here’s a brief description of the conditions that create a good action double. (1) We’re out of the opening and into the middle game. Unlike opening blitz positions, both sides now have some structure. (2) The side on roll (White in this case) is shooting at several blots. Hitting a blot might result in a big advantage, if the defender (Black) then rolls poorly. (3) The defende ..read more

  Cash game, Black owns the cube. White to play 1-1. In this position, White has escaped his back checkers, while Black has a single checker remaining in White’s board, behind a 5-prime. How these positions are conducted depends on whether Black has one man back or two men anchored. If Black is anchored, we name the position by the quality of the anchor: ace-point game, three-point game, and so forth. Those positions are fairly simple to conduct. White keeps his prime, brings his outside checkers home, clears the outside points of the prime, and finally starts to bear off. Keeping Black ..read more

Cash game, center cube. Should White double? Should Black take if doubled? Problem 172 is a position type that we’ve categorized as ‘One Man Back’. White has escaped both his rear checkers, while Black still has one man in White’s home board. Now White is considering a double. What factors go into the evaluation of a double in these positions? As in most positions, the first item on our list is the race. Here White has a solid 10-pip lead, 122 to 132. When we talked about races, I described the 8-9-12 rule for evaluating pure races without contact: make an initial double with at least an 8% l ..read more

Cash game, center cube. White to play 4-2. If you understood the logic behind our last problem, you should have no trouble with this one, although the two positions belong to different categories. Our last problem was what I call a ‘One Man Back’ position, where the issue was to move up in the board and try to get into a race, or stay back and wait for a better chance later. This position belongs in a category I call ‘Split or Something Else’, where one choice is to split the back checkers and go for an anchor, while the other choice is something different, like making an offensive point, bri ..read more

Cash game, center cube. White to play 3-2. Suppose you’re an intermediate-level backgammon player (a little vague, to be sure, but you get the idea) and you’d like to improve. What’s the best way to study the game in a systematic manner? Different players have different approaches. Here’s what I like to do as a training regimen: 1) Play a daily practice match against Extreme Gammon (XG). There are other bots, but XG is the best. I like five or ten-game cash sessions, since even a short session will usually produce a good amount of interesting study material. 2) Let the bot analyze the session ..read more

Cash game, center cube. White to play 4-4.   This position was originally Problem 166, where Black had just danced and the question was whether or not White should double. (The answer was borderline double/no double, and easy take.) Some of the responders asked how White should play a subsequent 4-4, and that did seem like an interesting idea for a problem, so here it is. With Black on the bar, the obvious play here is 8/4(2) 6/2(2), making a 4-point board and hopefully keeping Black on the bar a while longer. However, a number of our respondents were uneasy with that play, and suggested ..read more

Cash game, center cube. Should White double? If White doubles, what should Black do? By convention, most cash games use several auxiliary rules beyond the basic rules of backgammon, intended both to speed up the games and increase the stakes in an exciting way. The most common cash game rules are these: The Jacoby Rule: You can’t win a gammon unless the cube has been turned. This rule eliminates long, dull games where one side gets a huge early edge and plays for the gammon while leaving the cube in the middle. Automatic Doubles: If both sides roll the same number to start the game, the cube ..read more

Cash game, White owns the cube. White to play 6-3. Checker play in holding games is generally a pretty simple matter. When you’re holding onto an anchor and you’re way behind in the race, you try to follow three rules: 1) Keep your anchor as long as you can. 2) Run off your anchor when the alternative is breaking your board. 3) Run off the anchor if staying raises your gammon chances a lot. If you’re familiar with these rules, you’ll be able to handle most normal holding game positions well. Things get trickier when you have a third checker back. The third checker can generate more potential ..read more

Cash game, center cube. Should White double? If he doubles, should Black take or drop? In the last post we talked about the importance of cube benchmark positions — positions where one of the cube decisions (either doubling or taking) was perfectly marginal, while the other was completely clear. Learning typical benchmark positions gives us the ability to analyze a wide variety of related positions over the board with unusual accuracy. This position shows us another type of useful benchmark. We’re currently just four moves into the game. The opening sequence was White: 5-3, making the 3-point ..read more

Cash game, center cube. Should White double? If he doubles, should Black take or drop? A key idea in understanding the proper use of the doubling cube on a practical level is that of the “benchmark” position. A benchmark cube situation is a position where one of the decisions (doubling or taking) is a toss-up, while the other is completely clear. Properly understanding a benchmark position is very useful since it unlocks the key to many related positions. Just compare your actual position to the benchmark, spot what the relevant differences, and you should be able to make a good cube decision ..read more