Always have options at the ready in backgammon. The quantum nature of Lady Luck means: things turn on a dime, things veer into a hazy future. At the outset, divine a way to profit from Luck’s caprice. Select each phase of the game and sample it. Start with game plans and kinds of attack, move next to blockades and onto timing then finally rest in a strong home board — the tactical breadwinner sipping a brandy. Gaze deep and valiant into the college pranks of antsy runners, or contrast the medieval brutality of blot-hitting contests, or feel the frantic race of a stray blot besieged by nippy jackals. Concoct a scheme to profit from each opportunity, then figure the odds and shot counts for this situation. Soon coins will fly into the treasure chest. Unceasing transactions, coins entering and leaving.

Options are the pulsing blood at the heart of the game. Nearly every roll of the dice promotes some preferences and rebuffs the melancholy of others. Dynamic uncertainty erupts in each backgammon game, although the chosen paths depend only on wishing but not always on getting. Wish wisely, and play the odds. Only those choices among options with happy odds are profitable enough. Winners are crowned by their selections on each dice roll. An obsessive zeal of the accountant fits well into the game. So too the banker and the scientist, the young risk-taker and the crushing general — all play a thoughtful game of backgammon. And perhaps they know it. Perhaps they don’t.

The topic of the doubling cube bubbles up. Black to roll the dice. There are three classic game plans — run blots home, attack and kill enemy blots, and block enemy checkers. Each game and most positions mix these game plans. Here and now, in this position, which is the worst plan for Black? Set it aside softly, and weigh carefully Black’s other two game plans. How do they fare in the next few rolls? What are these options like? Which is better than which?

Afterwards, Black repeats another sharp inquiry, this time into White’s position. First, sketch White’s worst game plan, but then estimate the chances for success of White’s other plans. Black good or great, White good or not so good?

A quartet of game plans — Black this and White that — slyly allows Black the option of doubling the stakes with the cube. Or not, and waiting.

All hail options in backgammon!

To play well, options are not optional in the game.