Three midpoint tips

We continue our journey around the board with our next stop at the 13-pt, also called the midpoint. By now, you should know exactly what to do with most of the 5 checkers that start on that point — they need to become the builders we were referring to in our last article. Still, there are 3 more quick lessons to learn before we can say we have mastered the midpoint.

Don’t break the midpoint

The first lesson is not to break the midpoint too early in the game. The midpoint plays 2 critical roles on your board: it acts as a safe zone for your backcheckers on their campaign home, and also as a last line of defense for containing your opponent’s backcheckers. Once we break the midpoint, it is unlikely that we will rebuild it again, and so we will be giving up both of these benefits.

In the position below, we are trailing in the race and are within range of 11 attacking checkers in the zone. Gary also has a stronger board, with his powerful 5-pt made. Nothing about this position is signalling to break our anchor or to run. It even looks very natural to play 2 checkers down from our midpoint (52: 13/11, 13/8), to gain ammunition for a blitz of our own against split checkers, and to add a builder for the 5-pt.

In fact, any play that breaks the midpoint is a major blunder. The best play turns out to be the counter-intuitive running play (23/16). This illustrates the strength of keeping the midpoint as a long-term asset. Disconnecting the backcheckers from the main army results in a disadvantage that can be felt throughout the remainder of the game.

Don’t strip the midpoint

Breaking the midpoint is so detrimental that we should even strive to avoid plays that might result in breaking it eventually. Consider the position below, which is identical to the one above, except we moved one spare checker from the 8-pt back to the 13-pt. ¹

Here, instead of breaking our anchor and opening ourselves up to a blitz attack, we have the option of playing perfectly safely without breaking our midpoint or splitting our backcheckers (52: 13/6). This play still constitutes a blunder! If we strip the midpoint on this roll, and Gary proceeds to roll a 62 and run a backchecker, we will have to resort to breaking our midpoint to contain it! That scenario could be entirely avoided by keeping a spare checker on the midpoint.

An exception!

The last lesson regarding breaking the midpoint is a common exception to the above rules of thumb, which is that the midpoint loses importance when you hold an advanced anchor, such as the 20- or 18-pts. As we mentioned above, much of the midpoint’s value comes from outfield control; an advanced anchor can still aim pretty well at checkers in the outfield.

Below, we adapt our position further to give ourselves the golden point anchor:

This play improves our race, and now, after our play, we’ll be ahead by 7 pips. We could easily make a racing play by running a checker from our anchor home (20/13). Alternatively, we can choose an ultra-safe play that ends up burying a checker (8/1). We would only consider these plays if we were really avoiding breaking our midpoint (13/11, 13/8). However, since we hold an advanced anchor, breaking the midpoint becomes permissible and is the right play in this position.

1. I must admit, these positions can get a little contrived. For example, now we are no longer trailing in the race, so the running play makes more sense regardless of whether or not the alternative would strip the midpoint. However, the spirit of the lesson holds, and if you adjust these positions, you’ll find that the general idea of not breaking or stripping the midpoint usually remains correct. ↩︎

Next lesson: “Pay Now” is overrated