Early-Late Ratio and Doubling Backgammon Strategy

The ideal backgammon strategy is to offer the backgammon double at the opponent's take point. At this point the opponent expects to be in the same position whether he takes or drops the backgammon double. However the take point keeps on varying in the backgammon game and it is extremely difficult to be able to offer the double at the take point.

There is a notional cost in offering the backgammon double early in the backgammon game. It gives the doubling cube to the opponent while he still has a chance to recover. Similarly there is a notional cost in offering the backgammon double late in the backgammon game. The opponent is likely to drop the double and dilute its leverage. The early-late ratio gives a comparison of the cost of doubling early to that of doubling late. The backgammon strategy is that when the early-late ratio is low, the cost of early doubling is low and it is better to offer the backgammon double early in the backgammon game. When the early-late ratio is high the backgammon strategy should be to offer the backgammon double as close to the opponent's take point as possible.

The early-late ratio depends on a number of factors like cube ownership and level, match score and fraction of gammon wins. It is not possible to compute the ratio in a backgammon game situation. In fact it is not possible to represent the ratio in a single table. A number of tables have been prepared with the early-late ratio calculated for various conditions. The best backgammon strategy would be to memorize these tables. If that is not possible the next best move is to learn the trends.