Characteristics of the Backgammon Blitz

The backgammon blitz is one of the very exciting game styles or strategies in backgammon. It is quite aggressive and pretty fast-paced. Let's dive into the characteristics of this game.

The word blitz is really of German derivation. It is taken from the German "blitzkrieg" which means a fast aerial military raid. This term is also used in football. And in backgammon attack is the essence of a blitz. If a player is playing a backgammon blitz, the main strategy involved is attacking the enemy checkers. The characteristic idea behind this strategy is that by attacking your opponent's pieces it sends one or more of those checkers to the bar - the next phase of the plan is to keep them there.

The attack on the enemy piece is just as necessary as keeping the enemy checkers at the bar. A characteristic of the backgammon blitz is that it is not very successful if checkers are brought back into play as soon as after they're put in there.

A backgammon blitz also goes haywire if both players take turns getting checkers on the bar and out and dance around like that successively (though games like that would be pretty exciting to watch - it all ends up to which player is more lucky with the dice at times).

We may see and recognize a certain characteristic pattern and expect a blitz to come along during a game. A blitz may happen when a player makes a hit on an enemy checker and that chip stays at the bar during the opponent's turn. This may occur early in the game or even some other time during the mid-game.

Another characteristic pattern we may recognize is when one of the players has his back men split up. His opponent makes a good roll and a hit one (or both) of the open back men, build a point or maybe two on his home-board and eventually prevents the enemy checker (or checkers) from entering from the bar.

From the above characteristics we can draw a common denominator - making a hit and keeping the enemy checker on the bar. With this we can see that making a double on the dice really helps the aggressor employing the backgammon blitz in his game. A double roll on the dice also helps a lot when forming points on the home-board.

A perfectly successful backgammon blitz keeps a chip or two on the bar, closes them out by making a Prime of six points long on the home-board and bears off while the enemy checkers are stuck there on the bar.

Once you see these characteristic patterns you may be sure that a backgammon blitz is about to be run. Or it may turn out that you would make that lucky double and achieve a perfect blitz.

 

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