Backgammon holding game: how to play from behind

A holding game is the plan you play when you trail the race but are not in deep trouble: you keep an anchor — a point made with two or more checkers, usually an advanced one in your opponent's board — and wait for a shot as their checkers come home past it.

It sits among the five game plans in backgammon strategy; this page is the deep dive on that plan alone. The anchors guide explains what an anchor is, which one to make and when to leave it. Here the question is different: how do you play the whole game once that anchor is your plan?

A holding game rarely wins quickly. Its strength is that it keeps you in the game. Even when the race looks lost, a single late hit can send a checker all the way around while you still have a board ready to contain it. That is why you hold rather than run into a race you are already losing.

Players often mix up the holding game and the back game. Both wait for a shot from the far side of the board, but they are not the same plan. The difference is how far behind you are, how many anchors you hold, and what you do when a shot appears.

In a holding game you typically hold one advanced anchor and trail by a modest amount. When a shot appears, you tend to hit it promptly, then switch toward containing, priming or attacking the checker you sent to the bar. In a back game you have fallen much further behind and hold two or more anchors, often deep ones. An early loose shot is less clearly right to hit than in a holding game: containment and timing matter more, and you may prefer to wait for a later, more containable shot. The main risk is a gammon — or even a backgammon — if that shot never comes. The back game has its own guide, backgammon back game; it is a plan you fall into, not one this guide aims to teach.

The two questions from backgammon strategy still decide the plan: who is ahead in the race, and who has the stronger board? A holding game tends to be right when these line up:

• You trail the race. Count the pip count first — both players start at 167, and an average roll moves 8⅙ (see how to count pips). If you are clearly ahead, you usually want to simplify and run, not wait. If you trail, running into that race is a losing proposition; the anchor is what keeps contact.
• You have — or can make — one advanced anchor. Your 20-point, 21-point or 18-point (their bar point) gives you something useful to wait on. Without that, you may still be fighting to make an anchor, or you may have fallen into a deeper back game.
• You are not hopelessly far behind. A large trail with two deep anchors is usually a back-game problem, not a holding game. There is no single pip number that draws that line: read the race and the anchors together.
• Your home board is still in working order. A shot is only useful if you can contain the checker you hit. If your own board is already crushed, holding becomes much weaker.

Not every anchor makes a good holding game. The further forward it sits, the more of your opponent's outfield it watches and the harder it is to trap. The comparison, and the geometry behind it, live in our guide to anchors. For the holding plan, this is the short recap:

• Your 20-point (their 5-point), the golden point. A classic holding point: it takes away their most valuable home-board point, sits right in front of the outfield they must cross, and is hard to prime.
• Their bar point (your 18-point). Another classic holding point. It reaches furthest into their outfield, up to their midpoint. It sits outside their home board, so it does not give you an entry point and cannot stop a closeout.
• Your 21-point (their 4-point). The third classic holding point, and the other advanced anchor inside their home board: it is also hard to prime, and it does guarantee you a point to enter on.
• Deeper anchors, your 22- to 24-points. They keep you safe and guarantee an entry, but they see fewer outfield shots and tend to carry more gammon danger. Treat them as a safety net. A holding game built only on the 24-point is a weaker version of the plan.

Which of those you should make, when to split toward one, and when an early bar-point anchor is as useful as the golden point, are anchor questions — see which anchor is best. This page assumes you already hold one, and asks how to play the game around it.

Once the plan is to hold, the rest of the game has a few jobs that tend to matter more than any single pretty point:

• Keep the anchor while you trail. It is your safe base and your source of shots. Running from it while you are still behind usually trades a good holding game for a losing race.
• Build your home board while you wait. A shot is only worth hitting if you can contain the checker afterward. Make points at home so that a late hit can win the game rather than just slow it down.
• Hit promptly when you get a shot. In a holding game, the shot you have been waiting for is usually the one to take. That is the holding-game hitting policy; the general decision of when a hit gains something is in when to hit.
• After a hit, switch plans. Your opponent is on the bar and you may now be the one with the stronger board. Contain the checker, start a prime in front of it (see priming), or attack if the position invites a blitz. The wait is over; the game has changed.
• Keep some timing. Spare checkers still on their way home give you rolls to play without breaking your board or the anchor. If everything else is already home, you may be forced to break something valuable before a shot appears.
• Keep your midpoint while you can. Your 13-point is a safe landing spot for other checkers, and together with the anchor it covers more of their outer board.

Every anchor has to be given up one day: you cannot win with two checkers still back. The question is when. Leave too early and you give up your shots; stay too late and you can get stuck while your own board falls apart.

Count the race first (how to count pips). Then these are the usual reasons to break the anchor and run:

• A large double that flips or erases the deficit. Rolls such as 6-6 or 5-5 can move both checkers out at once and turn a holding game into a race you now lead or are no longer clearly behind. That is often the moment the plan has done its job.
• You are clearly ahead even without a spectacular roll. If the race has already swung your way, simplifying tends to be right: you no longer need the shot.
• You can hit on the way out. Leaving while your opponent has a checker on the bar is usually safer than leaving with nothing: they have to spend their next roll coming in.
• Keeping it would wreck your board. If the only way to hold the anchor is to break your home-board points, the shot you are waiting for will be worth little.

When your opponent is the one holding the anchor, your job is to come home without handing them the shot they are waiting for. Three habits help:

• Make landing points in your outer board. Safe points to come down onto mean fewer blots left in range of their anchor. A blot within six pips of that anchor is a direct shot, hit by 11 to 17 rolls out of 36 on an open board (the shot chart).
• Don't leave blots in range. Indirect shots (7 pips or more away) are hit by 6 rolls or fewer. When you must leave something, leave the smallest shot you can.
• Clear carefully. To bring checkers home past their anchor you have to lift your midpoint and your outer-board points. Plan which points you clear, and in what order, so you slot as little as possible in front of them. Once you are bearing in, safety still comes before speed: see bearing off against contact.

You also stop treating the position as a blitz: an all-out attack usually loses its point once they are anchored, because you can no longer close them out. Building in front of the anchor, as in priming, is typically the better structure.

The doubling cube in a holding game is about whether the shot is still alive, how strong each board is, and who leads the race — not about a single number. Soften every claim: the engine at the real score is the clean check, and there is no one take point that covers every holding position.

• The leader often has a strong double once they have brought their checkers past the anchor safely, or once the race lead is large and the remaining shots are small. Clearing the danger can be the moment the market is about to disappear.
• The trailer often has more reason to take than in a pure losing race, because a single hit can swing the game. That reason shrinks if their own board is weak, or if they would struggle to contain a hit.
• After a hit, the cube can change hands. The player who was waiting may suddenly be the one offering it, especially if they can contain the checker. The game has switched plans; read it again.
• Match score still overrides money instincts. At some away scores you take, pass, or play on differently; see match play and the cube in match play. Gammon danger matters more in a back game than in a well-timed holding game, but it never disappears: see gammons and the cube.

Holding-game sense comes from counting the race before you run, building a board while you wait, taking the shot when it comes, and noticing the moment the plan should end. On Megammon you can play the bot with no sign-up, play a friend, or play ranked matches online. During play, both pip counts are shown by default, so you can check the race every time.

New to the five plans? Start with backgammon strategy, then come back here. Want the point itself — which anchor to make, and when to leave it? Open backgammon anchors. The rules cover how hitting and entering work if you need the basics first.