Backgammon is a game of startling turnarounds, crushing defeats, nightmare endings, last second heroics, getting yourself in a mess of trouble, and then learning your lesson the hard way when you get backgammoned on a 4 point cube that you had no business offering or accepting. It often comes down to an exciting ending that toys with your emotions. At times, the game can even be cheap, underhanded, rude, or downright bastardly. Nothing exemplifies this more than The Strong Arm, a deus ex machine bridge that saves boatloads of hopeless backgame pieces and turns backgammons into victories and friends into enemies.
Imagine yourself with 3 pieces in your opponent’s home board behind an impenetrable wall advancing with devastating timing. Your homeboard is the projects. Points 6, 5, and 4 are vacant lots paved with broken glass and loogies; Points 3, 2, and 1 are severely overcrowded. You’ve got no hope, right? Even if you hit your opponent’s blot, they’d slip right off the bar, wouldn't they, those jerks?! What to do? Fear not and use the Strong Arm!
If you connect your pieces across the board, that is if you connect stacks on two points directly opposite each other (the 1 and the 24 or the 2 and the 23 for example), you’ve Strong Armed. Don't try to keep your pieces spread out. If you've got pieces in your opponents home, stack up on the point across from them! The moment your pieces touch across the board, a bridge is built between them, a Strong Arm extends and rescues your children who were so far from home. You still occupy both points, in fact each of your pieces in the Arm occupies both points at once. They can move forward from either point. Pieces that were in your opponent’s home board can move forward in your own home board, or if you want, you can still take the long way home and more them forward from your opponent’s homeboard. But that would be silly. The Strong Arm is for winning. Flex your muscles, bear off, and steel your jaw in case someone spits in your eye. Strong Arm- them's fightin' words!
Excerpt From: Sleeve of Crete. “909 Backgammon Teaser.” Desert Mast Press, 2012.
Imagine yourself with 3 pieces in your opponent’s home board behind an impenetrable wall advancing with devastating timing. Your homeboard is the projects. Points 6, 5, and 4 are vacant lots paved with broken glass and loogies; Points 3, 2, and 1 are severely overcrowded. You’ve got no hope, right? Even if you hit your opponent’s blot, they’d slip right off the bar, wouldn't they, those jerks?! What to do? Fear not and use the Strong Arm!
If you connect your pieces across the board, that is if you connect stacks on two points directly opposite each other (the 1 and the 24 or the 2 and the 23 for example), you’ve Strong Armed. Don't try to keep your pieces spread out. If you've got pieces in your opponents home, stack up on the point across from them! The moment your pieces touch across the board, a bridge is built between them, a Strong Arm extends and rescues your children who were so far from home. You still occupy both points, in fact each of your pieces in the Arm occupies both points at once. They can move forward from either point. Pieces that were in your opponent’s home board can move forward in your own home board, or if you want, you can still take the long way home and more them forward from your opponent’s homeboard. But that would be silly. The Strong Arm is for winning. Flex your muscles, bear off, and steel your jaw in case someone spits in your eye. Strong Arm- them's fightin' words!
Excerpt From: Sleeve of Crete. “909 Backgammon Teaser.” Desert Mast Press, 2012.
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