Backgammon Back Game Part 3 - Why Not to Hit Too Early

Vic Morawski: Hi, I am Vic and today we are introducing you to the game of Backgammon. I want to show you a position where a hit is not an advisable thing to do because it involves hitting too early. What we said in the position where we illustrate that the goal was, you are trying in a back game to get a late hit. You will notice the position we displayed was a position where most of whites inner checkers were either borne off or in white's home board and there wasn't a prime - or partial prime in front of it.

By the way, this is the best way to defend against a back game. A back game rather is try to build the prime in front of it, to try to play a priming game against a back game. Now, suppose in a situation like this, blue rolls the only number which is the 17/1 shot that hits this checker. In other words, the only number blue can roll that would hit that checker would be six and one. Now suppose blue happens to roll the 6-1. Well, just because you can hit again to review what the rule said, you are not forced to hit a checker. You can play elsewhere in your board if it's legal to do so. What I want to illustrate here is that this is a situation where even though you have the hit, it looks like this is blue's lucky day. Only a 17-1 shot, hit and by golly, blue rolled the 17-1 shot. But should you hit?

Well, what this position illustrates is a situation in a back game where it's too early to hit. Even though blue can hit, it is better for blue to wait until white has moved more checkers in and has broken up some up of this prime. Why? Well, two reasons. One, you don't have your welcoming committee, your own board built up well enough to contain the checker yet. Far better to maybe play that 6-1 down in preparation for making this important six point here, than hitting too early. But the most important reason why it's not good to hit too early in a back game is, white's position is way too strong. Once you hit, you have too much work to do on this side of the board to extricate yourself from behind all of white's blockade. So remember in a back game you are looking to get a hit late in the game, usually after your opponent has broken up any prime in front of you and is bearing off. Next we are going to talk a little bit about the holding game. To watch the other segments in this video series or for How to videos on almost any other topic, visit monkeysee.

com.