Opening Rolls - Part 1

Introduction
In this and a couple of subsequent articles we are going to go right back to basics and examine how to play the opening rolls. As with other games such as chess the opening roll goes a long way towards defining the type of game that will evolve.

In chess there are passive openings, e.g. the Caro-Kann, and active openings, e.g. the Sicilian. In backgammon we will see that certain opening rolls can be played aggressively or passively and that there are certain situations when one is to be preferred over the other.

So what are our objectives in the opening? Backgammon is primarily a race but if that was all it was nobody would play it. Whilst in the end the race will determine the winner there are many other plots and sub-plots within a game. To enable us to race effectively we need to create safe landing places for our checkers, i.e. make points and we also need to do as much as possible to hinder our opponent’s moves. Ideally we would like to trap one or more of his men behind a strong blockade. We do this by building a prime – a set of contiguous points, where the ultimate is a full prime – six points in a row.  Whilst six is ideal five-point and four-point primes are also very strong.

So we set out to a) create new points – preferably those that easily form part of a prime and b) begin to race for home. With regard to the second objective the most difficult checkers to get home are the two furthest away at the start of the game, i.e. the two checkers on our opponent’s ace-point. It therefore makes sense that if we are to move checkers in the opening those two on the ace-point should be given the highest priority. A third priority is to unstack our heavy points. In the set-up position we have 5 checkers on our mid-point (13-pt) and our 6-pt. Five checkers on a point is inefficient so we want to redistribute those checkers as quickly as we can.

There are 36 possible rolls of the two dice. Each number combination, except doubles can occur twice. For example, 31 can be thrown as a 3 on the first dice and a 1 on the second dice or as a 1 on the first dice and a 3 on the second dice. If we exclude the doubles – as you can never open with a double – then there are actually only 15 rolls to consider. These 15 rolls fall neatly into four groups:

Rolls that are always played the same way (5): 31, 42, 53, 61, 65

Rolls on which there is broad agreement (2): 62, 63

Slot or split rolls (3): 21, 41, 51

Rolls with no broad agreement: 32, 43, 52, 54, 64

It is perhaps surprising that after 3,000 years of play we still don’t know how to play some of the opening rolls! Now let’s examine each of these groups in turn.

Rolls Always Played The Same Way
31
The strongest roll of all is 31. This allows you to make your 5-pt by playing 8/5, 6/. Of all the points on the board the two most important at the start of the game that you should strive to make are your own 5-pt and your opponent’s 5-pt. Long ago, Paul Magriel, one of the world’s finest players and certainly the best author/teacher for many years, coined the term ‘Golden Point’ for the 5-pt to reflect its importance and the name has stuck.

Why is it so important? It is a new point in your home board that will hamper your opponent’s entry should he have a man hit. Most importantly it forms the third point in a potential prime – all you need now is to make your bar-point (your 7-pt) to create a four-point prime.

A 31 opening roll will lead to you winning the game about 59% of the time.

42
The next best roll is 42 which is played 8/4, 6/4 to make your 4-pt. Magriel named this the ‘Silver Point’. Whilst not quite as strong as the 5-pt it is still a powerful point to make and 42 is the second best opening roll.

The reason it is not as strong as 31 is the ‘gap’ between the 4-pt and the 6-pt. If you subsequently make your 5-pt you will have a very powerful position but if your opponent makes it he will have a strong defence. A 42 opening roll will lead to you winning the game about 58% of the time.

53
The third opening roll that makes a home board point is 53 that is played 8/3, 5/3. Any new point is an improvement and making the 3-pt is still a good start to the game. It is not as good as the 5-pt or 4-pt because there is now a ‘double gap’ between the new point and the 6-pt.

Back in the 1970’s 53 was played 13/8, 13/10 because it was felt that the 3-pt was too deep a point to make on the first roll of the game. However, Jason Lester, switched to making his 3-pt and noted that he was winning more games with this play than the old one and soon all the budding New York professionals changed to making the 3-pt. Nowadays making the 3-pt is universal.

61
The last of the point making rolls is 61, played 13/7, 8/7! Beginners often think that the bar-point is better than making the 5-pt but it isn’t for a number of reasons. Firstly all home board points are useful because they limit your opponent’s entering numbers when he has a checker hit. Making the bar-point doesn’t do anything to stop your opponent entering from the bar.

Secondly, the most difficult men to activate from the opening position are the five men on your 6-pt because they have so few possible destinations. 31, 42 and a 53 all make use of one of those men, 61 does not so whilst a 61 is definitely a good roll the structure that it leaves is not as good as after one of the other three rolls. On the up side it does create a three-point prime that can be extended in either direction.

65
The last of our ‘forced’ opening rolls is 65 which is played 24/13. This is a good roll because it gets one of the two back checkers halfway home in complete safety. The move is known as ‘Lover’s Leap’. Once you have started with a 65 you have a fairly straightforward game plan presented to you – run the other man out as quickly as you can!

For many years it wasn’t appreciated how powerful it is to escape one checker completely so early in the game. It is far easier to escape one checker than two and to have 50% of the job done on move 1 is a distinct advantage. These last three opening rolls, 53, 61 and 65 will all lead to you winning the game about 55% of the time.

Summary
Our objectives in the opening are..
i) Make new points
ii) Mobilise the back checkers
iii) Unstack the heavy points

So far we have only looked at rolls where there is really no choice. Things get more interesting when we look at the remaining 10 opening rolls.

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