The Blitz Attack

Hey, backgammon fans! Marc Olsen here from backgammongalaxy.com. In today’s post, I am going to talk about the blitz. 

So, the blitz in backgammon is what we call it when your plan is more to attack and hit your opponent and try to go for a closeout rather than to try to prime and block your opponent.

Let's have a look at a very normal opening sequence here. I am playing with the green checkers, and you are playing with the white ones. Let's say I get a six and three. The right opening play for this, for me, would be to play the six out here, split the back checkers, and bring a builder down from the midpoint.

Green’s opening play

Now you roll the double five. You must go for a blitz attack, and the best play here is to hit on the ace point, which is usually not something we want to do. But in the blitz attack, it's actually quite good because we don't care about purity, which means making the points in the right priming order. And then the two other fives are going to be played from the eight point to the three point. And now we have a strong blitz position here. 

How Does the Blitz Affect Both Sides?

So, you can see that white doesn't have a priming position here. There is no prime; he's never going to have a prime. He gave up the priming game plan by making this blitz move where you put your checkers in deep. 

Green is actually in a pretty good shape because now white has a little bit of an overplayed position where many of the checkers ended up behind the rear angle of green. But all the times that that doesn't happen, green is in big trouble because first of all, in a quarter of the time, green is going to stay on the bar, and white is going to claim the point because he's going to double, and green has to pass. And even if green were to enter with one of the checkers, even if it has just one blot, white's strategy is to continue to hit that blot. He needs to play aggressive and hit loose, continue the blitz attack. Every time green enters, white is going to attack again, hit loose. This is how the blitz is played, that's the game plan of the blitz. You're going for the closeout. The closeout would be this: 

Now, white succeeded in the closeout, and he's often going to win a gammon even. And this is how you win via blitzing. 

The Scenario in Which the Blitz Fails

So, the blitz can be very powerful, but what happens if the blitz fails? Let's go back to this position where white has just attacked with double five. Let's say that green rolls a two and a three, so he comes in with a two, and then he plays this three because it's a little bit more safe. 

So now, white is going to attack and attack. Let’s say white rolls a 6-1. In this case, white is probably going to play a six and hit green, 

and then he will make the seven point. 

And now, green rolls a roll that survives the blitz. Let's say he rolls a two and a five. So, he anchors up with the deuce, and he plays a five down like this. 

Strategic Implications

So, in this position, green has survived the blitz. Every time that happens, the player who survived the blitz usually has a pretty good position because look at white's position now. It's impure, so he's never going to build a strong priming position. He has two checkers buried behind the anchor; that's kind of a weakness. And even though white is ahead in the race, green has better timing, which means that sometimes white is eventually going to crunch his front position because he can't escape with the back checkers. So, that's a strategic implication. 

White must get the back checkers going; he cannot afford to get trapped behind a prime. Vice versa, the game plan for green will just survive the blitz. And green is down in the race, and must play for the prime because there's no point in going for a race. And if green succeeds in building a prime, let's say it builds this beautiful five-prime here, and white fails to escape the back checkers, eventually, white is going to crunch his front position, and he's going to end up leaving shots with a horrible position, something like this. And now, green has an easy win in this position; she's even going to win lots of gammons here. 

So, the blitz is very volatile; it's very effective when it goes well; you often win a gammon. That's why it's so powerful. But when it goes badly, you need to go for a race really fast because otherwise, you can get trapped behind a prime and you're going to lose the game. 

Another strategic implication of that is that from an overall game plan point of view, the blitz and the race, they go hand in hand; they supplement each other. If you're ahead in the race, you don't need to build a prime to win because you can just get your checkers home and not get hit; you will win the game. But if you're down in the race, you need to build a prime. So, that's a little something about the blitz. 

Blitz vs. Prime Position

Blitz position for white and prime position for green

Here, white has a blitz position because he isn't pure; there are plenty of gaps in his prime. He's stacked; a stack is very bad in a priming game because it's inefficient, but in a blitz, it's not that bad because it's extra ammunition you can use to hit or to build new points. 

On the other hand, green's front position over here is definitely not a blitz position; he doesn't have any ammunition in the zone. This is a beautiful prime position because it's a solid structure; it works well for blocking, but it doesn't work well in the blitz to try to go for a closeout. So, it’s important to identify what is actually your game plan: Do you have a prime position or a blitz position?

For the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNgWrITqwCI