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…
an opening gambit
Sometimes in backgammon there is beauty in perfection -- and sometimes not. Bringing two spares down from the midpoint and the other minor split to the 22pt and 10pt are both "acceptable" opening plays, but the chosen split of 24/21 and down of 13/11 is the usual start for an opening roll. When White opens…
a bankroll of its
?? maybe play some backgammon tonight, ten dollars a point say, just a friendly urbane game, with plenty of breaks for story telling or the heroics of late game recubes, rare as hens teeth, to be had either for cash or for a heating up of any short match. ?? of course you may bring…
crazy talk
Just for a bit of fun, here is a position where Black cubes while dancing on the bar with two black checkers, knowing full well that White will beaver. But in a real game, with human players, foolish plays in backgammon often have strange outcomes. Black has two checkers on the bar, dancing. Black doubles,…
the bots and the buddies
When Gerry Tesauro developed the first self-educating backgammon bot, the techie TD-Gammon, a sacred dominion between mankind and the machine was flipped forever upon its Janus heads. Everyone involved in the story resists change in some way or another, including the change just to submit or to die. But the Bot persists, aloof, as a…
study tip (2)
This game begins with standard point making then shuffling checkers about awaiting the order to charge, thereby running ahead until Black and White face each other in a holding game. Hoping for the other to crack. An outfield standoff. The cube is untouched, of course. The game has been balanced throughout. The strategy, delay tactics…
random thoughts at night
Lady Luck has an interesting side hustle going. Not only does the playful Lady navigate the game against world class fakers at world class stakes, but little Miss Luck herself uses her rare foresight and ample wit to subtle advantage, thereby on average demanding only correct odds in every backgammon situation -- first Black rolls…
study trick (1)
A benchmark position must be set up by memory, no exceptions. To remember, a short narrative may be attached to the backgammon situation, where the herald proclaims a royal position with its entourage a chorus of backgammon ideas. Tweets blare the bling: a closed board, a number puzzle. How to spread the three black spares?…
down to the crossroads
During a dark night of backgammon, on an empty fruit stand at the crossroads of some rural route, deep and silent in tobacco county, the devil makes an interesting proposal. Do you want to start the game with glorious 31s, making your golden point? Or: Would you prefer to have ownership of the doubling cube…
common occurrences
It is a common occurrence in the game, soon after you wade into the thickest jungle, that's when backgammon begins to beguile. Softly at first. Backgammon beguiles you in scrubby rugged terrain where fleet gazelles play at running games. Lady B smoothly beckons you into a majestic library, lets you wander off, poke about, until…
the baron talks backgammon 