Outside Prime vs. Inside Prime

Hello, all! In today’s blog post, we're going to talk about structure and backgammon. Structure is usually the word we use to describe your front position prime structure. Here, for instance, blue has a five prime—that's his structure:

So, in this post, we will compare outside prime with inside prime and discover why inside prime is the better one.

The position above would be considered as an outside prime because the five prime goes from the five to the nine point. So, we've got three out of the five points, and the majority of the points are in the outer board.

The position you will see below, however, would be an inside prime because the majority of the points are in your inner board:

Inside prime

And the one you will see below is even further inside. It is a truly powerful prime:

A more powerful inside prime

Why Are Inside Primes Stronger Than Outside Primes?

The answer to this question is in the nature of the game: Backgammon is a race. Let's say Blue has an outside prime and White has this anchor:

Outside prime

If this was a pure race, the pip count would be the crucial factor. But in this case, it isn't because Blue is priming White here. For instance, if White were to escape with a double six, if he has race value and the pip count is equal, he could actually win this game.

So, when White has an anchor against an outside prime, the pip count is still quite valid because he can get lucky. He can escape maybe one checker at a time or both with a double six, or a double five later on, and he can actually win the race.

But with an inside prime, that is going to be very difficult because when Blue has an inside prime:

White’s anchor trapped behind Blue’s inside prime

even if White is ahead in the race, Blue is still winning. Why? Because White is trapped behind an inside prime, and even if he finally lets go of his anchor and starts running his checkers, he will have many rolls to get those back checkers into his home board.

On the other hand, Blue is so close to his home board that he's already going to be bearing off checkers, because he had an inside prime. He's going to be with many checkers off when White finally makes it all the way to his home board and starts bearing checkers off.

Compare that with an outside prime. Let's imagine that Blue has got a five prime, and it's from the six to the ten point:

The moment that Blue starts to let go of his prime, he still has so many checkers to move:

He has so many rolls to get his checkers into the home board that White can actually catch up and get his checkers into the home board as well and then win the race.

To sum up, the inside prime is stronger than the outside prime because;

• Backgammon is essentially a race.

• The inside prime has more inner points, which may prove to be really useful in the case where you convert your game into a blitz.

  • With the inside prime, you have a stronger inner board and more blitz value.

You can see the full video here!