Double twos were Paul Magriel’s favourite roll and he invariably accompanied thrm with a loud shout of “quack, quack”.
Firstly, Red must realise that the priming play of 13/7, 6/4
Bray's Learning Curve
Each week, author Chris Bray lends his sharp insight and easy-to-understand analysis to help you improve your game.
Chris is the author of multiple backgammon books, including Backgammon for Dummies, and is the backgammon columnist for The Times of London.
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Every Monday Chris posts an interesting backgammon position on our Facebook page. We encourage you to join in the lively discussion and return here to our website on Tuesdays to read his extended analysis.
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If you made the full prime with 13/7(2), 8/2(2) then you have much to learn about backgammon. That moves makes a beautiful six-point prime, but it may well have a very short half-life.
I see this type of position misplayed so often that I thought I should set it as a problem.
After playing this double four, Red will be ahead in the race by 24 pips and so White will
This position is taken from Michihito Kageyama’s (Michy) book “Back Checker Strategy”. This is the best of his three books (they are all good) and essential reading for any serious
As you can see from the rollouts below making the 3-pt wins more gammons than the safe 9/5, 7/4.
The key is in the score. At this score a gammon gives Red the match with perfect efficiency
For once, a nice and easy problem in the beginner’s section which most people got right.
The correct move is 13/9(2), blocking sixes from Red’s 3-pt. Kent Goulding calls this “nine
It is remarkable that only one commenter got this correct. I also got it wrong over the board.
Although it is close all moves other than 8/5, 8/3 are errors.
The kay is that White has two
Most players get this problem wrong. After we discard the very ugly 11/7, 6/4 we are left with two choices, slotting the 5-pt with 11/5 or running a back checker with 22/16.
Because White