Month: September 2018

I love Quora. Great questions and answers from experts (usually).

Today I answered a Quora backgammon question, the first I’ve seen:

What are the best dices for the first player which begins a backgammon game during his/her first turn: 3:3, 4:4 or 6:6? Why?

Here was my answer:

According to the rules of backgammon, the first player to move does not have doubles. The first player has 15 possible dice rolls: 2–1, 3–1, 4–1, 5–1, 6–1, 3–2, 4–2, 5–2, 6–2, 4–3, 5–3, 6–3, 5–4, 6–4, and 6–5.

So I will answer this question as which is the best doubles to roll for the response to an opening move by the second player.

It depends.

In most cases, 6–6 is best because it puts the second player ahead in the race. Backgammon is ultimately a racing game. But sometimes a better game plan earlier on is priming or attacking.

Here are the exceptions to 6–6 being the best roll, which occur when you can send one or more checkers to the bar:

If the first player placed one checker on the 21-point, 2–2 is the best roll.

If the first player placed one checker on the 20-point or ran a back checker to the 18-point (with 6–3 or 5–4), 3–3 is the best roll.

If the first player rolled a 6–1 and made the 7-point (a/k/a bar point) or ran a back checker to the 17-point, 4–4 is the best roll.

If the first player placed one checker on the 22-point, 5–5 is the best roll.

For a game that takes 5 minutes to learn, it can get complicated in a hurry: Even the opening roll plays vary depending on match score.

You may be looking for rules to apply. If so, there are good ones that you may search for and learn: Kleinman and Trice for racing decisions; PRAT, O’Hagan’s Law, and Woolsey’s Law for doubling decisions; and Magriel’s Bold vs Safe criteria for mid-game checker play decisions.

Backgammon on Quora! Any more questions?