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The pros will dispute among themselves about which strategy is the best to win at backgammon. At the end of the day each strategy is but a variation of the following list we've compiled for you.

While experienced players may shower you with countless tricks of the trade which they've acquired over the years, there is a core group of backgammon strategies on which the experts have seemed to agree upon:

The backgame approach to backgammon is a very slow-paced and exceedingly safe method of playing. It is not one of the more popular approaches to play as it often serves to merely annoy the other player by the backgamer's lack of movement on the board.
This approach suggests leaving two checkers (anchor men) on one number in the opponent's home board as this takes over that point on the board and does not allow the opponent to land there with his men. Some claim that this is a last-resort strategy for the player who is already losing to just slow down the inevitable.

Just as in football, the blitz is a pre-emptive show of aggression by one of the sides. Once the player notices that his rolls are coming up on high numbers, he takes advantage of the option for large movement on the board and gets all his checkers to the home board as quick as possible. Once this is done, the opposing player falls greatly behind without even knowing what hit them. Getting at least one of the other player's checkers on the bar in this process can almost guarantee a lightning swift victory.

A somewhat less blood-thirsty approach but still fairly aggressive is the holding game. Through this method, a player quickly plants one of his men deep into "enemy territory", or the opponent's home board. That man then is on call to perform hits and send opposing checkers to the bar. Getting the checker so quickly to the other side's low numbers also serves to get a healthy lead in motion.

The most straightforward and popular approach is the running game. This technique suggests just playing it safe and avoiding any holdups to the player's goal of moving his checkers up the board. The running game approach focuses less on attacking the other men and gives attention more so to the player's own mission.

Finally there is the Priming Game. This is the strategy of obstruction. By building a wall (preferably the maximum six-high one) of checkers, you block any of the opponent's checkers that sit behind the blockade. The wall can sit anywhere between the player's 11 point and 2 point and should be held until the last possible moment when he must begin to disperse the checkers onward.