Hi all,

I have a major problem learning to play a backgame. I have only tried it a couple of times in live play, and they have both been massive failures. Now, whenever I get multiple checkers back, my opponent usually offers the cube and I decline because I don't have confidence to pull off a proper backgame.

For practice, I use GNU, but it seems to have no backgame engine and makes poor evals.

Where should I start? What is a good way to learn / practice this important part of the game?

The book "Backgammon for Serious Players" has a number of backgames and other complex games in their entirety with explanations of what's going on.

Both Snowie and Extreme Gammon play back games well and would make good practice opponents.

Hey, Bill, who wrote that one

Some old-timer -- I forget his name.

"Every backgame is different.

I say that because we have a tendancy to lump all backgames together when really every single backgame is a different type of game. The player playing the backgame and the player playing against the backgame will have different goals depending on what backgame you're in. ...

Every backgame is the same.

There are a couple different things I mean by this. The first thing is stay alert and make sure you consider all possible plays. Until you're comfortable with backgames there are some plays that will be blindingly correct that you may not have even considered OtB. ...

...With real estate it's location, location, location and with backgames it's timing, timing, timing. Think about that every play you make. Another common element you'll find when playing against backgames, especially middle to deeper backgames, is that slotting key points is almost automatic...."

Stick Rice, Introduction to Backgames, 25 November 2011 @gammonvillage

I have been using GNU for a few weeks and made the assumption that it's 'hints' were always the best play. Bad assumption?

Make sure to set up hint (Options - Analyze) to make 2-ply, "World Class", analysis.

Thank you. This game is more complex then I gave it credit for. I am getting hooked and might just order a couple of the books that are referenced in this forum. I find most of the advanced discussion here over my head, and that frustrates me. I need to at least get to the point where I can understand the lingo. It's one thing to have poor plays pointed out and learn to mimic the computer plays in common scenarios but quite another to understand the math behind why one play is marginally better than another.

I was showed a cool position once that was supposedly used to practice back games. I can't remember the exact position, but basically one side had about 6-7 men back and perfect timing. The other side had maybe a 5 prime in front of the back men and the other checkers were well placed.

Maybe someone else ITF knows the position? The idea is to play an otherwise normal game of BG, but starting from that position. Pretty cool idea IMO.

This is an excellent way to learn backgames -- set up a typical position and play it out many times. You'll start to get a feel for ideas like timing and containment, and how important it is to play purely in backgames.

I would recommend to start with Paul Magriel's "Backgammon", where you can learn about lingo and basic concepts.

Also, you can read many good articles on http://www.bkgm.com/articles/index.html for free.


Yes, the game is complex - give yourself enough time and don't expect miracles overnight.