Free Lessons

by Paul Money - July 2006 - This is the first in a course of lessons designed to take Beginners up to the Intermediate and Advanced levels of backgammon skill. Starting right from the beginning, we are going to learn all the techniques that underpin the games of the very best. Progress to the Expert or even World Class level is going to depend on your natural ability and how much of your life you want to devote to the game.

by Paul Money - July 2006 - In Lesson 1, we took a look at how to play the opening roll. Logically we should now be looking at the response to the opening roll, but it isn’t that easy. There are about 30 different reasonable ways to play the opening roll and if we multiply that by the 21 possible numbers that we can roll in reply, you can see that we would be looking at about 600 or so responses.

by Paul Money - August 2006 - Hi there, take your seats for Lesson 3. Our responses chart for this time looks at the replies when the opponent has rolled 6-4 and made the major split, 24/18, 13/9. This is probably the most popular way to play this roll right now, so you do need to be clear as to how to reply. This chart should help to avoid some of the most common mistakes.

by Paul Money - August 2006 - Welcome to another lesson in our series for beginners. Last time we looked at some of the underlying logic behind cube play and studied the correct cube action in some simple end games. I want to stay with the cube for this lesson. Let’s look at how we should use it in straightforward racing games. Many of our games will end in a race, with no hitting possible and gammons out of the question, so...

by Paul Money - September 2006 - Hello again and welcome to another of our lessons aimed at helping players starting on in this great game of backgammon – however, we do hope that players of all levels will find something of interest in these articles. In the last two lessons we concentrated on cube play, with lots of technical stuff. I do want you to keep referring back to that until you feel that you have it all clearly understood...

by Paul Money - September 2006 - Welcome beginners! In a sense, we are all beginners at this game, as at all levels you will find players with gaps in their knowledge. I like to think of this as learning together rather than me teaching you. Once you have learned to play, most people like to have a small wager on the game. It does add to the excitement and helps to keep the mind focused. A word of advice though...

by Paul Money - October 2006 - A lot of what we have done so far has been theory that demands a lot of attention and effort on your part. I hope that you’ve put the effort in; believe me it will all be worthwhile if you can build your game on a solid understanding of the basics. This time I’d like to bring you a ragbag of odds and ends, all slightly peripheral to the game, but all of interest...

by Paul Money - October 2006 - In this lesson we will look at match play for the first time. The skills required are different to those needed in money play, with many variations in checker play and cube actions. The score is the all-important factor, so let’s start by looking at the shortest match length possible, the two-point match. These are of course often found at the end of longer matches, when both players are exactly two-points from victory, or 2-away, 2-away as it is known.

by Paul Money - November 2006 - Last time we took a look at some of the strategies in a two-point match. From there, we can move on to the three-point match and as you might expect, life is a little more complex. Just as in the two-point match, the cube decisions at every score in the three-pointer are different to money play and of course there are more of them.

by Paul Money - November 2006 - In this lesson I’d like to talk to you about anchors. The set-up gives us the 24pt anchor to start with. Anchors however, are always known by their numbers from the point of view of the opponent, so if you are anchored on the 24pt, it is usually known as a 1pt or ace point anchor. The ace point anchor is the weakest that one can have, so our early play is often directed towards improving it.

by Paul Money - December 2006 - Last time we looked at some deep anchor positions. Generally speaking, a high anchor is much to be preferred, on the 21, 20 or bar points. These can’t be primed so easily and are much less likely to be gammoned. They also control the outfield, so that the opponent can’t leave blots there in safety. The 21pt is the weakest of these, so let’s look at that first.

by Paul Money - December 2006 - In Lesson 11, we were looking at anchors and how to play against them with the cube. We didn’t need to think about checker play much. The attacker tries to get home safely without leaving a shot, while the defender sits and waits and hopes. However, there are of course many situations where the checker play of the anchor holder is difficult and this week we’ll look at some of them.

by Paul Money - March 2007 - This week we look at Propositions and Settlements but first a bit about pip counts. Of course online the pip count is displayed on screen for us, but in live play we have to do the work ourselves and it is a vital skill to acquire. The player who can’t count the position fast and accurately concedes a significant advantage to the player who can. There are many players at advanced level and even some experts who can’t do it easily,