Backgammon opening theory

The first moves of a backgammon game are the opening moves, collectively referred to as the opening, and studied in the backgammon opening theory. Backgammon opening theory is not developed in as much detail as opening theory in chess, which has been widely studied. The reason for this is that following the first move in backgammon, there are 21 dice roll outcomes on each subsequent move, and many alternative plays for each outcome, making the tree of possible positions in backgammon expand much more rapidly than in chess.

Despite the complications posed by this rapid branching of possibilities, over the course of many years, a consensus did develop amongst backgammon experts on what is the preferred opening move for each given roll. Following the emergence of self-trained backgammon-playing neural networks, the insights on what are the best opening moves have changed in some unexpected ways.

Preferred opening moves

The table below summarises the most commonly preferred moves, for each of the 15 possible opening rolls, as selected by detailed computer simulations, referred to as "rollouts". There are no opening moves consisting of doubles, because at the start of the game, each player rolls one die. Whoever rolls higher moves first, using the numbers on the already-rolled dice. In the case of a tie, the players roll again. In cases where no preferred play but only two or more alternative plays are given, these appear to be of equivalent strength within the statistical uncertainties of the simulations and no play could be singled out that is clearly superior.

Opening

Opening may refer to:

See also

Backgammon

Backgammon is one of the oldest board games known. It is a two player game where playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and a player wins by removing all of his pieces from the board before his opponent. Backgammon is a member of the tables family, one of the oldest classes of board games in the world.

Backgammon involves a combination of strategy and luck (from rolling dice). While the dice may determine the outcome of a single game, over a series of many games, the better player will accumulate the better record, somewhat like poker. Thus, records of matches between players are good indicators of relative skill. With each roll of the dice, players must choose from numerous options for moving their checkers and anticipate possible counter-moves by the opponent. In variants that originate from early 20th century New York, players may raise the stakes during the game. There is an established repertoire of common tactics and occurrences.

Like chess, backgammon has been studied with great interest by computer scientists. Owing to this research, backgammon software has been developed that is capable of beating world-class human players (see TD-Gammon for an example).