Backgammon Tips & Strategy to Win More Often (Free Online)

The backgammon tips that win the most games are these: learn the five point-making opening rolls, make your own 5-point early, keep blots at least seven pips away from enemy checkers, grab an advanced anchor in your opponent’s home board, count pips before deciding whether to race or block, and bear off without leaving gaps. Backgammon is driven by dice, but each of those habits shifts the odds a few percent in your favour on every turn — and over a game, that adds up. You can practise all of them free in your browser at Offline Games Arcade, against a computer opponent on Easy, Medium or Hard.

This guide assumes you already know how the pieces move. If you don’t, start with our how to play Backgammon rules guide, then come back here for the numbers and the habits.

Start strong: the opening rolls worth memorizing

You begin with two checkers on your 24-point, five on your 13-point (the mid-point), three on your 8-point and five on your 6-point. Of the fifteen possible non-double opening rolls, five have a clearly best play, and four of them make a new point on the very first turn:

3-1 — make your 5-point. Bring one checker from the 8-point and one from the 6-point. This is widely considered the best opening roll in the game.
4-2 — make your 4-point. Same idea, one point deeper: 8 to 4 and 6 to 4.
6-1 — make your bar-point. Move 13 to 7 and 8 to 7. With the 6-point and 8-point you now hold three blocking points in a row.
5-3 — make your 3-point. 8 to 3 and 6 to 3. Deeper and a little less valuable, but it’s still a home-board point.
6-5 — run a back checker. Move one checker from the 24-point all the way to the mid-point.

For everything else, the principle is the same: use the roll either to bring a builder down from the mid-point (a spare checker aimed at a point you want next turn) or to split your back checkers so they’re harder to trap.

Know the shot odds before you leave a blot

Every blot is a bet, so it helps to know the price. There are 36 possible dice rolls. If nothing blocks the path, here’s how many of them hit a lone checker at each distance:

Distance from enemy checker	Rolls that hit (of 36)	Chance
1 pip	11	31%
4 pips	15	42%
6 pips	17	47%
7 pips	6	17%
11 pips	2	6%

Two practical rules fall straight out of that table:

Six away is the worst place to stand. A blot exactly six pips from an enemy checker gets hit almost half the time.
Seven is the magic number. The moment a blot is more than six pips away it can only be hit by a combination of both dice, and the risk drops by roughly two thirds. If you must leave a checker exposed, leave it seven or more away — or, oddly, right next to the enemy checker, where a 1-pip shot is safer than a 6-pip one.

Also ask what it costs to be hit. A blot hit on your side of the board loses you only a few pips. A blot hit in your own home board, after a long trip around, loses twenty or more.

Make your 5-point, then your bar-point

Not all points are equal. Your own 5-point is the most valuable point you can make early: it blocks the enemy’s back checkers, it’s a home-board point that makes re-entering from the bar harder, and it sits next to the 6-point you already own. After that, the 4-point and the bar-point (your 7-point) are the next best.

Points deep in your home board — the 1-point and 2-point — are much weaker in the early game. Checkers placed there are out of play: they can’t help build anything else for the rest of the game. When you have a choice between a flashy deep point and a quiet builder on the 8- or 9-point, the builder is often the stronger move.

Get an anchor on the other side

Your two back checkers are your biggest liability. The best insurance is an anchor — a point you hold with two checkers inside your opponent’s home board. The most valuable one is their 5-point, often called the golden point, with their 4-point close behind.

An advanced anchor does three jobs at once:

You can never be shut out. If you’re hit later, you always have a safe point to enter on.
Your back checkers can’t be walled in behind a long blockade, because they’re already near the front of it.
You keep watch over your opponent’s outer board, so they have to bring their checkers home carefully.

Once you hold a good anchor you can play the rest of the board more boldly, because getting hit is no longer a disaster.

Count the pips, then pick a game plan

Your pip count is the total distance all your checkers still have to travel. Both players start at 167. To count quickly, multiply the number of checkers on each point by the point number and add it up — five checkers on your 6-point are 30 pips, three on the 8-point are 24, and so on. An average roll moves you a little over 8 pips, so a lead of 16 is about two rolls.

The count tells you which game you should be playing:

Ahead in the race? Simplify. Run your back checkers, avoid contact, stay safe. If nothing gets hit, you win on arithmetic.
Behind in the race? Keep contact. Racing when you’re behind just loses slowly. Hold your anchor or the mid-point, build a blockade, and wait for a shot.
Opponent has loose blots in their home board and you have builders nearby? Attack. Hitting while making home-board points can leave them stuck on the bar. With only one point open, a checker on the bar enters just 11 times in 36; with two open, 20 in 36; with three open, 27 in 36.

Most beginner losses come from playing the wrong plan for the count — typically running for home while 20 pips behind.

Bear off without throwing the game away

Bearing off looks automatic, but games are still lost here.

In a pure race, take checkers off. If a roll lets you either remove a checker or shuffle one forward inside your home board, removing one is almost always right.
Bring them home efficiently. On the way in, aim to cross onto your 6-point exactly rather than wasting pips burying checkers on the 1- and 2-points.
Don’t leave gaps. A bare 4-point or 5-point means rolls of 4 or 5 get wasted moving checkers down instead of off.
If the opponent still has a checker on the bar or an anchor in your home board, safety comes first. Clear your highest points first, keep an even number of checkers on them where you can, and don’t leave a blot just to take one extra checker off. One late hit can undo the whole game.

A note on the doubling cube

In match and money play, the doubling cube matters as much as checker play. The classic rule of thumb: take a double if you’d win at least one game in four, because losing double one time in four costs the same as giving up the single point every time. And if your position is so strong that your opponent should obviously drop, doubling simply collects the point.

Our free browser version plays straight single games — no cube — which makes it a good place to drill checker play on its own. The take-or-drop instinct is still worth building for when you play for stakes across a real board.

Use the computer as a practice partner

The game keeps separate win and loss totals for each difficulty level, which makes it easy to practise on purpose:

Work on one habit per session. Play five games thinking only about blot distances, then five thinking only about pip counts.
Move up when you’re winning clearly more than you lose, not after one lucky streak. Dice are noisy; a handful of games proves little.

When you want a change of pace, the same thinking transfers well to other games in the arcade:

Checkers — blocking and forcing moves with no dice to blame.
Chess — pure planning; good training for thinking a turn ahead.
Mancala — another counting race where every pit is arithmetic.
Dominoes — blocking play built on working out what your opponent can’t do.
Five Dice — dice odds and risk decisions in their purest form.
Pig — a tiny push-your-luck game that teaches when to stop rolling.
Nim — a short maths duel about leaving your opponent with only bad moves.

FAQ

What is the best opening roll in backgammon? 3-1 is generally considered the best, because it makes your 5-point on the first turn. 4-2 and 6-1 are close behind, since they also make a valuable point immediately.

Is backgammon more luck or skill? Both. The dice decide any single game, so a beginner can beat an expert now and then. Over many games, though, the player who manages blots, points and pip counts better wins clearly more often.

What is the most important point in backgammon? Your own 5-point, followed by your opponent’s 5-point as an anchor. Holding either one blocks key entry and escape numbers and makes the rest of your position safer.

How do you count pips quickly? Multiply the number of checkers on each point by that point’s number and add the totals, counting any checker on the bar as 25. Both sides start at 167, so you only need to track how far each side has moved from there.

Can I practice backgammon online for free? Yes. Backgammon at Offline Games Arcade is free to play in your browser with no download or sign-up, against the computer on three difficulty levels.

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