And now for something a little different. Three backgammon positions appear below. Unlike most backgammon positions found on this website, you are not expected to "solve" anything. Instead, one idea permeates each of the three positions below. Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is to compare these three positions. First, place a qualitative…
backgammon study tip – 1
The first in a series of tips to improve at backgammon. View the game as a Taoist flow, a sequential exchange of Yang and Yin. The Dance Sequence. Black hits a white blot loose. White dances. Black turns the doubling cube. A waltz: one, two, three, one, two, three, one ... A waltz: Loose hit.…
summer 2023 (1)
New day. A simple opening mistake. White opens with 36s and plays the big split 24/18 then brings down an outfield builder 13/10 Black replies with 42s. Almost all opponent blots in the early opening are best hit, and Black's roll represents a dividing line. Black correctly plays 13/7*, hitting White off the barpoint. White…
summer 2023
Not the beginning you wanted, eh? Son, that sure is no way to start any game of backgammon, let alone one in our sessions or chouettes. You must play the game fickle, play it slippery, then pause with cunning. Later on, play it hot and sweaty as summer jailbait. Or launch a sudden attack, a…
Reference positions for taking and passing the cube
Cash game. Jacoby rule in force. White doubles. Once White doubles, the Jacoby rule is irrelevant. Black must decide whether to take the cube, even though Black is clearly losing this game. Or should Black pass, resign to defeat, chalk up the lost stake, and begin the next game in the session with renewed vigor.…
four threes
Has the old man has lost his marbles along with his ailing vision? Last night the old man quietly sidles up to third roll tosses of three-fours. Admit it. Too young. Too early. Hardly into the opening phase. Just the third roll from the blessed birth of a new game. And yet the 34s roll…
a question of rodents
In backgammon an expert player of cunning and means will always try to gain a decisive edge on a suspicious gambling mark for example the jacoby rule provides that edge it focuses attention on the doubling cube gammons do not count until after somebody doubles the stakes for either side the rule injects a sense…
ipso facto weed whacker
"Woke up this morning ... saw the blue moon in your eyes." Sometimes you have to live in the basement. Not in a man cave, but the actual basement. Bunking and debunking with spiders and heating tanks. Broken TV but at least a stereo, old music discs, and a makeshift pantry of citrus fruits and…
options
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…
thoughts on backgammon
One way to learn the game. The scale of backgammon rewards essential detail and terrier effort and kiai -- a robust fighting spirit. Playing well means to play the game with fervor, focus on the big picture, yet demand each small detail add to the team. And to do so dripping with enthusiasm. Then the…
the baron talks backgammon 