Bray's Learning Curve

Time for an anchor

Picture of Chris Bray
Chris Bray
Match Play. Red leads 4-1 to 11. How should Red play 33?
Backgammon board in play with red and white checkers on multiple points, bar and home areas visible, dice showing a roll in the center

Answer and Commentary

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Bray’s Learning Curve — A Great Member Benefit

Bray’s Learning Curve is a USBGF online series by author Chris Bray. Each week Chris lends his sharp insight and easy to understand analysis to help you improve your game.

Visit the USBGF Facebook page every Monday to challenge yourself with an interesting backgammon position and join in the lively discussion.  Return to usbgf.org on Tuesday to view the answer with commentary.

More Bray's Learning Curve

Overhead view of a backgammon board with red and white checkers on the points, some on the bar, and edge scores showing 2/9 and 0/9.

Cube Power

At first sight this position looks innocuous, and few would give much though to redoubling. Red still has a. lot of work to do and White has a five-point home board. Even so the redouble

Backgammon board in mid-game showing red and white checkers on alternating points, with dice showing 6 and 4 and the bars along the sides.

Two on the bar

A nice easy one this week. After all it is a beginner’s problem. 

“Two on the bar, better by far” is an old backgammon adage and it has stood the test of time. 

Despite the lack