David Richerby wrote:


Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Well, they can be sent backwards. I can't elect to move one of my
men backwards; I can merely leave it somewhere where my opponent
can choose to hit it and send it back to the bar.

There are positions where the opponent's only move hits one of your
men, and entering such a position is electing to move one of your
men backwards.

This is an important part of playing a back game; when playing
against inexperienced players, they often don't know that such a
thing as a back game exists, and thus don't know to avoid hitting
your men, but against an experienced player you need to give him no
choice in order to have your man sent back where it can become part
of your prime.

I'm confused. If I'm playing a back game, I have a couple of made
points in your home board and I'm trying to build a prime ahead of
them so that, when you're bearing off, you'll leave a blot that I hope
to be able to hit so I can catch up while you're blocked by my prime.
As such, the space ahead of my prime has very few of my men in it.
How, then, can I force you to hit a blot in that largely empty space?

After you have made the prime and his men are all bunched up against
it or against the back of his home board, sometimes you end up
having to leave a hole in the prime. Rolling a 6-5, for example.
the question is whether to jump two men over his piled-up men
or just one, leaving a blot. The thinking is that by leaving the
blot, you might re-enter while hitting a blot among his men bunched
up against the back of his home board, thus putting one more man
behind the nearly-prime* and possibly making it easier to repair the
hole. It all depends on the situation, of course. I have played
against inexperienced players that kept hitting every blot they
could until I had a prime in his home board and him with no men
that had made it past the prime.

* which is NOT the same as a nearly-IM...