Backgammon Flexibility
In this post, I will talk about flexibility.
Whether you're a seasoned backgammon player or just starting your journey, understanding the role of flexibility in your game can make a significant difference.
Now, let’s start with today’s topic. When you have flexibility in backgammon, it means that the position is likely to improve. On the other hand, an inflexible position is safe in the short term but not really likely to improve.
Let’s imagine that I won the opening roll. I play a four and a three, and move 13/6, stacking up the six point.
Inflexible position
This move is pretty safe, but inflexible. The checkers on the 6-point is what I call a “super stack”, and stacks are not desirable in the game, because they are inflexible. Moves like these are safe in the short term, but more risky in the long term. In such positions, you don’t have the flexibility of moving your checkers to develop.
A flexible move in that case would be:
Flexible position
This position poses a short term risk for your game, because there are a lot of hits.
For example, you can get hit by a six two, six three, four five, double three, and a double four. When you calculate the possibility of award and risk, the flexible move here offers you more reward than risk, because the chances of you getting hit will not be through a direct shot.
In other words, the opponent will have to combine two dice in order to be able to hit you in that position, which is not that easy.
In the position above, your checkers are well-distributed and almost all your numbers are point-making numbers. For instance, if I roll a 32, I get a great chance to make a priming point:
The flexible position is rewarded.
Or, if I roll a 52, I can make a very strong four point:
A variation of point-making from a flexible position
So, you need to trade off between long-term and short-term safety during the game. Notice that backgammon itself is about making strategical risk-reward calculations all the time.
For flexible backgammon, keep these in mind:
We don’t like stacks.
We like a good distribution of spare checkers.
We like to make structure (e.g. a prime).
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