Adopting a game plan from the outset of a backgammon game allows you to predict, and to some extent control, the moves of your opponent, placing you in an optimal game winning position.
There are 5 basic strategies for playing backgammon.

• The Running Game Strategy
• The Holding Game Strategy
• The Priming Game Strategy
• The Backgammon Blitz
• The Back Game Strategy
• Practice Your Strategies

The Running Game

The objective of the Running Game is to bring all your men into your inner board and bear them off as quickly as possible, similar to a competitive race. You should choose a running game when you have fewer pips remaining to get all your checkers off than your opponent, and you already have gotten all your checkers past your opponent or it appears likely that you can do so.

The Holding Game

The central idea of the Holding Game is to plan on keeping a point in your control that is located highly in your opponent’s board, usually a point in his inner board or the bar point. This is often the best strategy when trailing in the pipcount race. Playing this kind of positional advantage is more of a style than a backgammon strategy. The 20 point or bar points are the best holding game anchors, as they provide maximum chances to hit your opponent as he brings his checkers closer to home. Points further back get much weaker. It is also crucial to understand the right times to offer the doubling cube, and to accept or drop a double when playing or defending a holding game. Another key strategical element to the holding game is the distribution of the opponent’s checkers.

The Priming Game

The Priming Game is a particular type of holding game and involves building a prime – a long wall of your pieces, ideally 6 points in a row – in order to block the movement of your opponent’s pieces that are behind the wall. The prime can be constructed anywhere between point 2 and point 11 in your board, then you can shuffle it into your inner table as you approach the bearing-off game phase.

The Prime vs. Prime Game

When your opponent has a prime, it is very important to get your checkers to where they can escape with a single number. For example, if his prime is 5 points long, it is very important to get to the front so you can escape with a 6. If his prime is 6 long, you cannot escape.

A variation of the priming game is the prime versus prime, when both sides have strong blockade. The key features are the number of points in the prime for each side, the number of checkers behind the prime, and whether the stranded checkers are at the front of the prime.

The Backgammon Blitz

The Backgammon Blitz is essentially an attack on your opponent’s pieces, with the aim of keeping your opponent on the bar while moving your pieces into your inner table as quickly as possible. The ultimate goal of the blitz is to close out one or more of your opponent’s pieces by occupying all 6 of the points in your inner table, making it impossible for these pieces to return to the game until a point becomes available when you are bearing off.

The key strategy to starting a blitz is usually an early roll where you hit an opponent’s checker and he stays on the bar, or perhaps you hit two and he doesn’t enter both. The Blitz gives you a great tactical advantage.

The Back Game

The Back Game is achieved by controlling two (or more) points in your opponent’s inner table. The main game objective is to hit a blot late in the game and contain it. It is a difficult strategy to play in backgammon because the chance of a successful Back Game is influenced by the luck of the dice roll.

While a weak opponent can often be seduced into overrating his position when you play a back game, it is rarely a good strategy to seek a back game from the start. It will often arise on its own if you attempt a blitz and have many checkers hit. Even then, you would usually prefer to hit an opposing checker early and try to trap it. You should only go all-out for a backgame once you have two back points made and are at least 70 pips or so behind in the race.

Important to note that this tactic is not a strategy to play from the outset of a game , and should only be adopted when you are significantly behind. It is a losing strategy caused by the circumstances of the game and is simply intended to hinder your opponent’s options in order to improve your chances of winning.