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The 24/16 Opening Play in Backgammon

The 24/16 play for the six-two opening roll in backgammon is the second favorite play for many players. Doing 24/16 in the opening roll advocates a running play rather than other strategies available for this opening roll. If you're the type of backgammon player who likes to take risks, or you're just the type who would love to gamble your prospects then this play is perfect for you.

The favorite play for the six-two backgammon opening roll is to do a 24/18 13/11. This play splits your back men and slots the bar-point on your opponent's side of the backgammon board. This also brings down a builder from the mid-point.

You can say that this play is somewhat a balanced approach to developing both sides of the backgammon board. The blot on the 11-point is really quite safe on the backgammon board with only one dice roll combination that hit it. Playing 24/18 13/11 takes a bit of a gamble by slotting your opponent's bar-point.

Doing that in the opening roll is like inviting your opponent to a slugfest for that position. That might well be a fight you'd most likely lose by sheer numbers alone since your opponent can use more checkers than you can. But it seems that the advantages of this play have outweighed all the disadvantages because it has come up as the favorite play for the six-two opening roll.

Doing a 24/16 play for the six-two opening roll takes on another approach in a backgammon game. By playing 24/16 in the opening roll you run one of your back checkers. After making this play in the backgammon opening roll your next plan is continue running this very same checker to safety.

If you are able to pull off this amazing stunt in the opening roll without getting your back checker hit then you have gained a really good lead in the pip-count. But such lead will always come to a certain price during a backgammon game.

Doing a 24/16 play takes on some risks and if you're that kind of guy then go ahead and take a gamble. Your blot on the 16-point isn't exactly perfectly safe on the backgammon board. Sure, the only threat comes from the huge stack of opposing checkers on the 12-point.

If you play 24/16 in the opening roll, remember that your blot can get hit if your opponent rolls a four, a three-one, and a pair of two's. This backgammon running play is also like a split play that carries some risk. Just weigh the risks versus the benefits and see if this play for the opening roll fits your backgammon strategy.