Problem of the Week #1: March 8

We’re starting a new feature in the Backgammon Forum: a weekly problem. Take a look and comment on your choice and the reasons for it. Next weekend I’ll give the solutions and the logic behind them, and submit a new problem.

Each problem will be graded in one of three ways: “Easy” (most good players would make the right play without much thought), “Moderate” (most good players would agree on the play, although there might be some discussion, and “Hard” (good players would strenuously disagree, and one’s manhood might be called into question).

We’ll start off with an early game two-parter, with both parts being rated “Easy”.

Money game, center cube.

(a) Black to play 4-2.

(b) Black to play 6-2.

WARNING: IM NOT FAMILIAR WITH BACKGAMMON SPEAK!

A) I EITHER MAKE THE INNER 4 OR 20 SPOT...ANY GIVEN DAY IM LIKELY TO DO EITHER!

B) IM COVERIN THE 22 + BRINGING AN 8 TO THE 2 SPOT! I ALSO MAY RUN OUT THE 22 TO THE 14!

a) Make the 20 point, it's the best defensive point for black. Especially with white having a point made in his home.

B) 24/22 13/7 Black needs an anchor, 24/22 accomplishes that, the only reasonable 6 after that is to slot the 7 point. Black now forces white to roll a 6, black is a small favorite not to get hit.

A) Make the four point. I'm not anxious to make an anchor, our six and eight are stacked, and white has a fairly difficult time making his five from this position anyway. This is a spot where anchoring too early tends to lead to an annoying four-point game, and I hate those, so I may be biased against it.

B) 24/18 13/11 and I don't think this one is close at all. 22 anchor sucks, and if you're going to blot a 6, blot the one that's useful.

(a) Make your 20 point. It greatly devalues white's 4 point anchor, which is his primary advantage over you. Once you have the advanced anchor, you have a little more freedom to play aggressively on the inside.

Making the 4 point does unstack some checkers and makes useful point, but it also leaves you with some cleanup to do. You're not pulling ahead with this play, you're just pulling even and you're still playing defense.

(b) Play 24/22 13/7. Playing 22/20 is dangerous because your opponent should be hitting loose with any 1 (31 changes from a crappy roll to an awesome one). You're already losing the construction battle, so why give him the opportunity to continue pounding on you? Slotting your opponent's bar point (24/18 13/11) runs into similar problems. Your opponent will gladly hit loose when you have three blots floating around and no home board.

A. 8-4,6-4 has 2 advantages that make it a better play than 24-20,22-20

1. It fills a point in our home board equalizing our inner board strength with white's.

2. It unstacks the 6 and 8 points and gives us another safe landing spot for future attackers.

While 24-20, 22-20 is a reasonable play since it fills the all-important 5 point in our opponent's board. It is early in the game yet and there is a good chance this can be accomplished in the near future, and early in the game given a choice between making a forward anchor and covering a point in my board I believe it is usually best to make points. Also factoring into this decision is the fact that white has few attackers in position to make points in his board. In fact without rolling doubles white cannot make a point in his home board without leaving a blot on the 17 point for us to aim at.


B. 24-22, 8-2 making the anchor is correct here i believe with the 2. With the 6 I believe since white's board is pretty open it we should slot a point in our own board hoping to close it out next roll

13-6 would also be an option here but I believe if you are going to leave your opponent with a direct shot it might as well be on your board so you have a chance to close it out next roll. 8-2 also leaves your opponent the least possibilities to hit since he has to roil exactly a 1.

I think the key question here is whether it would be more valuable to in this early stage to have the 7 or the 2 point covered. When I first learned the game I was taught that it is bad to cover points too deep in your board early because it takes them "out of play" and that the 7 point was important since it blocks off a large percentage of white's escape rolls, but in this situiation i am leaning towards the 2 point for the reasons i have stated.

A) Your not anxious to make an anchor??? Making your opponents 5 point sets you up for the rest of the game, it is a huge point to make early. It also allows you to get aggressive on your side of the board.

B) We seem to have a difference of opinion about early anchors. I am not sure what your trying to accomplish with your play, but i am attacking your men all day long. By slotting my 7 point i keep the pressure on white, he is forced to roll a 6, if he doesn't I have a ton of rolls that give me a clear edge in position, if I do get hit its not the end of the world as i have an advanced anchor.

The reason for slotting the 7 is that you have very few bad rolls if missed, and a ton of very usefull ones to build your board with.

Haven't looked at the other responses yet.

For 4-2: I'd move both of the back checkers to the 20 point. Making the 4 point is tempting, but with white already having made the 21 point in its home board I'd like to get beyond the 21 so as not to get trapped. This seems like a fairly easy one.

6-2: This one's harder. The choice is between either moving a checker from 13 to 5 or covering the 22 and moving a checker from 13 to 7. I have a slight preference for moving 13 to 5 because with a checker on the 5 instead of the 7 it's A) harder for my opponent to hit, B) easier for me to cover, and C) a more important point on the board. Also, covering the 22 doesn't seem terribly important because the checkers are still trapped if we make the 22 and the only rolls that can really screw us over if we leave the back checkers prone are 53, 33, and 55.

1. My first thought on this is 24-20, 22-20. Making white's 5 point seems to me to be the best play, with making my own 4 point being the only obvious alternative.

I'm only a beginner, but the two things that stick out in my head are

a. the inflexibility white has with both his checkers still on his 24 point. (why the four point isn't urgent)
b. how drastically the game would change if my opponent made his 5 point. (which it seems he is a slight favorite to make before me).

2. 24-22, 13-7. 24-22 seems obvious to me (it may not be, I am a beginner) There seems to be only one natural alternate to slotting your bar point, namely slotting your 2 point. But I do remember reading that the bar point was one of the three most important points to make. Also, there seems to be a lot of different ways to make another home board point with three consecutive points with your checkers on them.

I would appreciate any criticism

Ok, let's see (I haven't looked at the answers yet).

(a) 8/4 6/4 - building my front and unstacking my spares. I don't feel that the pressure on my split back men is strong enough to forgo this opportunity.

(b) I find this a bit tough, as the roll is quite ugly. I think I would play it 22/14. The only real alternatives I see are 24/18 13/11 and 24/22 13/7. I don't like both very much and I surely hate 24/22 13/7 - this is just offering White a huge a race lead if he hits and all this for the 3-point, which is not so enticing. I'll have three men back, if I'm hit for hardly any upside. This option seems to tight to me. 24/18 13/11 might be a serious contender to running, but if I'm to leave a shot, I would prefer to leave it with 22/14 - this way, if white doesn't hit me I'll have one back checker escaped, at least. And, unless white throws very big rolls, he is not in a position to attack my back checker quickly. If I'm hit I'll have to resort to anchoring and defending, but I'm not ready to do directly with 24/22.


PS: By the way, I hate 52 as the opening roll. In German we call it "der Nie-Gute", that is "the never-good" - it never accomplishes something useful... we also make jokes in the way that if 52 DOES something useful, the opponent must have made a mistake before ((-;

(a) I'm taking the 20 anchor. Unstacking the 6 & 8 to make the 4 is certainly tempting, but the 20 is just way too strong this early in the game.

(b) Tough call. I'm running with 24/14 to leave a shot that doesn't hurt that badly and makes my opponent waste a roll to hit me. I'm not too excited about an anchor @ 22. 13/5 is a fair alternative, but gives an easy shot to the opponent to gain a pip lead - same reason I don't like any alternative that involves 13/7.

I don't hate 24-22, 8-2 as a safe alternative to make an anchor, but setting up to make our 2 point is a little weak

1) 24/20 22/20 for sure. We're not deciding between two five points here--it's a five-point and a four-point. In addition, it nullifies some of the offense of the opponent's four-point, so we lose substantially fewer gammons, certainly more than we give up by passing on our four-point.
2) This one is easy? Man, I've forgotten a lot. I would narrow it down to 22/14 and 24/22 13/7. 13/5 is slotting with the wrong checkers versus a better board, so I don't like it at all. 24/18 13/11 is kind of ugly because opponent can hit with anything except 44, and probably should with a lot of them. 24/22 8/2? I think I'd rather slot my own bar point and give me some good aces than slot the 2 point. I'm not crazy about running, but I'm pretty happy if I escape. I think I'm leaning toward 22/14, but I could be talked out of it to make the anchor.

A) I would agree with all your points...24/20 22/20 is by far the best play....anything else is silly.

B) 22/14... I think is your 2nd best play......although if was playing someone who was stronger than me, i may be inclined to give up a small edge in equity by running and trying to play a simpler game. I just dont see a big downside to slotting the 7 point, we do have an advanced anchor and being that he is a dog to hit.....i like it.

I still think it's early enough in the game that unstacking our 6 and 8 points and setting up a decent attacking game is more important than making a forward anchor. If our opponent had more attackers and was likely to make a 3rd point next roll i would agree with you but we are not in much danger of being hit and stuck on the bar for very long.

There are a lot of bad rolls for us by not anchoring, all the doubles hurt , as well as 3-1, 5-3, 5-2 even a roll like 6-4 is starting to hurt us.Thats 12 perhaps even 14 rolls that put us at a big disadvantage. I still prefer the anchor and the 7 slot to put the pressure back on white.

a) I'll take the anchor. If you compare the two positions after each alternative, then making the 4-point leaves a pretty much even position with white having better gammon chances. After grabbing the anchor it seems like we have the best of it. Whites 4-point doesn't really have that much value anymore and white hasn't developed his back checkers yet.

b) I'll take the anchor again. The 22-point is a fine anchor, sure the 20-point is much better, but I'll take what I can get. Also running doesn't really seem very productive or thematic. After making the anchor 13/7 looks much better than 8/2. Leaves a couple of more shots, but starts a better point and also gives us a builder to help make the 5 or 4 point next roll.

1) 24/20 22/20

this weakens whites inner board and greatly reduces the value of his 21 point. If white did not hold the 21 point then blacks own 4 point would be worth relatively more but after white has taken a decent inner board point its value is reduced.

2) 22/14

now seems a good chance to escape a checker with white beginning to build up his inner board. Moving this piece instead of the 24 piece to 16 is better imo because white has less dice rolls to hit this running blot (11 compared with 14) + it means the remaining blot in whites inner board takes up a less valuable position for white so he has less incentive to hit.

EDIT: just ran these through GNUbg and there are actually 3 decent choices for 2 so its not completely clear cut.

You're not really attacking anything by making your 4 point. His back checkers are safely resting back on the 24 point and aren't really being threatened by an attack. It would probably be better to think of making the 4 point as a priming play.

a) 24/20 22/20
b) i think i'd move 22/14

Love this feature and feel a lot more comfortable posting here than on a backgammon specific forum outside of 2+2. I'm answering without looking at what others have wrote and am thinking out loud so I might be a bit wordy.

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In (a) the builders available after the play on both sides appear to be the key. If black goes on offense and makes the 4 point he still has builders on the 6 and 8 point available for hits (if white splits) or for making the 5 and 7 points on the next few rolls.

Playing defense and making the 20 point isn't too important here since white doesn't have the builders to do much hitting loose or point making yet. In addition white's defense is already adequate. His split checkers are already putting pressure on white's outfield and he can easily make a defensive point or escape a checker later.

One way of looking at this is to make both plays and study the board. Making the 4 point simply looks better with a nice balance between offense and defense.

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Problem (b) isn't so clear to me. There seem to be several possible plays:

Slot the 7 point with the 6 roll and use the 2 roll to either:
- make a half decent defensive anchor on the 22 point.
- bring up the checker on the 22 point to the 20 point hoping to make an advanced anchor in an exchange of hits (note that white's distribution isn't too scary at this point).

Slotting the 5 point seems too dangerous leaving 3 blots against white's two point board. Maybe Barcley Cooke would like this play .

Running to the 14 point does nothing on offense except to cover the outfield for a roll or two while turning a 2 by white into a good roll.

Another option is to move 24 to 18 and 22 to 20. Here we duplicate 1's and have a decent chance to make a good anchor in an exchange of hits. But it does nothing on offense and is only a slight improvement over making the 22 point on defense so I'll put this aside.

I guess I'll combine safety with offense by making the defensive anchor on the 22 point and slotting the 7 point. It simply looks best.

~ Rick

PS Bill - Just got your "501 Essential Backgammon Problems" for myself and "Backgammon For Winners" as an introductory book for my gf. Love the "501 Essential Problems" book so far. Will try to write a review when I finish.

That was my play but what do you mean by "this is a spot where anchoring too early tends to lead to an annoying four-point game". In other words what is a "four-point game"?


Nice play alternative; most others seem to have overlooked it.

~ Rick

Wow, the 2 point is simply a horrible slot; especially when no other inner board points are made. Note even if covered it doesn't connect with the eight point and strips a builder needed to make the 5, 4 and 7 and 3 points (all more important).

~ Rick

24/20 22/20
24/18 13/11

@pocket trips, I agree that you wouldn't be stuck on the bar for long, but don't underestimate the power of holding your opponents home 5 point hostage. It allows you to play the next stage of the game much more aggressively, without having to worry about getting a blot hit.

Also, if we don't make this point and our opponent rolls a 3-1, 3-3, or 1-1, we're in trouble and have just allowed him to make an important prime in his home board.