Safe or bold? How to choose your next backgammon move

When a risk is worth taking, and when it's just an expensive habit.

You've rolled, and there are two obvious moves. One makes you a lovely new point but leaves a single checker sitting out in the open. The other tucks everything up safely and achieves close to nothing. Which one is right?

This is the question backgammon keeps asking, and "it depends" is annoyingly true. But what it depends on is learnable.

Start by counting the shots

A lone checker is called a blot, and it can be hit. How likely that is depends on how far away your opponent's checkers are, and the odds are worth knowing.

Within six pips, a single die can reach you. That's a direct shot, and those are the dangerous ones. Seven pips or more needs both dice, which is an indirect shot and far less likely.

Out of 36 possible rolls, a blot is hit by:

Six away is the most exposed spot on the board. Seven away is less than half as risky. Sometimes one extra pip changes everything.

Then ask what you're getting for it

Risk isn't bad in itself. Risk for nothing is.

A one-in-three chance of being hit is a fine price for making your 5-point, because that point will help you for the rest of the game. The same risk to shuffle two checkers nowhere in particular is a bad deal.

So the question isn't "is this safe?" It's "is this worth it?"

Look at the race

Count the pips you each need to get all your checkers home. If you're comfortably ahead, you're winning a running race, and there's rarely a reason to start a fight. Play safe and jog on.

If you're behind, safe play loses slowly. You need contact: blocking, hitting, holding a point in your opponent's way. You can't win a race you're already losing, so you have to make something happen.

Can you afford to be hit?

Being hit costs more at some moments than others.

It costs less when you have points made in your home board, because your opponent will struggle to come back in. It also costs less when you have an anchor, two checkers safely holding a point in your opponent's home board, so you have somewhere to land and a chance to hit back.

It costs more when your own home board is bare and your opponent's is strong. Then a hit can cost you half the game while you sit on the bar.

A simple default for beginners

Lean safe while you’re learning, with one exception.

Your opponent’s two back checkers have to travel the whole way across your side of the board. Every point you own in their path is a roadblock, and the ones nearest them matter most: your 5-point, your 4-point and your bar point. Those roadblocks win games.

So if a risky move builds one of them, take the risk. If it builds a point your opponent’s checkers have already passed, it blocks nobody and the risk buys you little.

And if you take a sensible risk and get hit anyway, you didn’t play badly. You made a good bet and the dice went the other way. Those are different things, and telling them apart is most of what improving at backgammon means.

The short version

• Count the shots. Six away is the riskiest spot, seven away is much safer.
• Ask what the risk buys you. A key point is worth it; nothing is not.
• Ahead in the race, play safe. Behind in the race, make something happen.
• A strong home board and an anchor make bold play cheaper.
• Being hit after a sensible risk isn't a bad move. It's a bad roll.