One of the most important assets in a backgammon game, typically undervalued by new players, is an anchor: an inner board point in your opponent’s home board. You actually start every game of backgammon with the 24-pt anchor made, but this turns out to be the weakest one for a variety of reasons, and so one of the main goals in the early game is to try to upgrade to an advanced anchor, on the 21- or 20-pt.
Having just learned how important the 5-point is, it should come as no surprise that the best anchor is the one that blocks your opponent’s 5-pt — that is, your 20-pt anchor. This point has been coined the Golden Point by none other than Magriel, and in fact, is the real most important point to make in the game. It’s so important that it’s worth dwelling on a little bit.
First, owning any anchor in your opponent’s home board will dramatically reduce your chances of losing by a gammon. An anchor prevents you from ever being closed out, so if you ever get hit, you at least have a chance to enter on every shake. Even if your checkers are trapped behind a 6-prime, you can continue to shuffle the remainder of your checkers home, helping you get off the gammon.
However, that assumes your opponent can build a prime at all — the second benefit of an advanced anchor is that it makes a priming game plan nearly impossible to execute! Consider the position above, where you’re holding the golden anchor. It is much harder for Gary to build out a prime by filling in the 18-pt, then the 16-pt, than it is for you to fill in your 5-pt, 4-pt, etc, in order. This clarifies why the golden anchor is so strong and the 24-pt anchor is so weak — an advanced anchor will better deter the priming game plan in addition to blitzing game plans.
Rookie mistakes regarding advanced anchors would be to either fight for one too late or to break it too early.
In terms of when to start working towards an anchor, the general strategy is to split your backcheckers in an attempt to make one as soon as the dice don’t provide you with a constructive play. For example, since you can’t make an inner board point with a 32 or 43 shake, you should use those to split to the 21- or 20-pts. Also, once your opponent has made their advanced anchor, you should try to make one at your very next opportunity.
Regarding breaking your advanced anchor, this is obviously something that has to be done to bring your backcheckers home and win the game. Still, it’s easy to blunder by breaking it too early when you get a convenient running roll. The truth is that it takes a lot of experience to learn when it’s appropriate to make a run for it… there aren’t any easy rules of thumb here. What I would suggest would be to put off breaking an advanced anchor until you can’t resist it any longer. You will make fewer errors leaning in this direction than the alternative.
Consider the position below. You have the golden point, and you rolled 52. The 7 pips from this roll could perfectly safety one of the checkers from your anchor, going 20/13. This play is a colossal blunder, making you a real underdog in the match, and doubling your gammon loss chances. The bots rank the running play as the 15th best play.1 Instead, the best play is 13/11, 13/8, which unstacks the mid-point, threatening to contain Gary’s last checker.
Another consideration when it comes to fighting for an advanced anchor is the race. If you’re really behind in the race, it’s better to hang back on a lower anchor to maximize contact. For example, below you made the 5-pt and Gary rolled a 55:
Now, your opponent is up in the race by 16 pips. This is a substantial lead. If you made an advanced anchor, Gary could dump his checkers behind it and cruise to victory. Also, what is the point of making an advanced anchor here? Are you trying to escape your backcheckers to race? You’re trailing by a bunch, you’ll just lose a straight race. Much better, in a situation like this, to focus on building out your prime, and slowing down your opponent. The best play here, therefore, is 13/8, 6/5, leaving your backcheckers pinned to the 24-pt.
One last piece of advice is to learn to show sufficient respect to the golden point. When given the option to make the golden point, it is probably the correct play. For example:
Above we have a classic decision, where we must choose between making an inner board point (the 4-pt: 8/4, 6/4) and playing defensively by making an anchor (making the golden point: 24/20, 22/20). We’ve discussed in great detail the value of building a strong home board, so our inclination might be to make the 4-pt. However a good anchor often turns out to be the better option, as it eliminates any of our opponent’s offensive plays: here, they can’t make the 5-pt and the 4-pt no longer blocks us! An advanced anchor actually adds to our general board strength and should be considered when comparing home boards with our opponent.
A phrase I once heard that always settles this debate for me is “it’s not the golden (whatever).” For example, in the position above, “It’s not the golden 4-pt”. In other positions, “It’s not the golden hit.” Hopefully, you get the idea. The golden point is the only one to have earned its name on the board, treat it with respect.
Further reading:
- A Look at the Golden Point by Michael Crane
- 5pt vs 20pt Quiz by Dan Rovira and Alex Eshaghian, a video quiz that teaches you how to choose between making the 5-pt and the golden point.
- Can you even think of 15 different plays that would be worth playing? This emphasizes the weakness of the running play. ↩︎
Next lesson: Point on head
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