Backgammon

You play to 7 points, not for money - and you're still using money-game instincts for every cube decision, every gammon call, every take. Almost every book teaches the wrong game.

Match equity, the Crawford rule, post-Crawford doubling, gammon-go versus gammon-save, Double Match Point, the free drop: a coherent body of knowledge scattered across articles and never assembled for the club player. This book assembles it and makes the match-equity table usable instead of memorised.

Inside:

• Reading a match-equity table without memorising the whole grid, and the reduced set of scores that covers most of what actually comes up.
• Gammon-go and gammon-save: exactly when to chase the extra point, when to protect against one, and the concrete checker-play adjustments each calls for.
• Why a correct money take is so often a match pass (and sometimes the reverse), and how the recube, too-good, and the doubling window itself all move with the score.
• The Crawford rule in full, the distinct post-Crawford rhythm on both sides of the cube, and the free drop precisely defined.
• The key scores drilled by name - Double Match Point and its neighbours, the 2-away family, the strongest gammon-go and gammon-save scores - plus when a score is distant enough that ordinary money logic still applies.
• Tournament format, playing under a clock, and the mental side of a long match day.

Depends on Books 1 and 2's checker-play and money-cube foundations. Written for players who know the rules and the basic race and are ready to stop applying money-game instincts to a match.

All diagrams appear in full color in this eBook edition (the paperback interior remains black-and-white for print).

Backgammon Uncovered, Book 3. Builds on The Checker Play and The Doubling Cube Nobody Teaches You; the series continues with The Race Nobody Teaches You.