Backgammon One's Way to Effective Leadership
Whether in school, work, business, the military, or the community, backgammon games can whet one's leadership and tough decision-making skills. It's best to think of it as a war game: Head an invasion (bringing men into the home board) or rescue mission (bringing them off the board). This minus the violence of PC war games---and yet all the excitement intact.
Some say backgammon is a race, or pip count - who gets the checker chips off first wins. But it can also be seen (with enough imagination) as a war game for the military minded. Or a trade war where a market is gradually penetrated with strategic franchise positions. The point is, it is an exciting tool for leadership training both students and corporate management trainees can use. Here is a summary of how backgammon can be used for leadership training:
In backgammon, a player leads men (checker chips). The player strategizes effective ways to get all the men safe to the other side, and then back. It's not a game of chance but wits. The player thinks of more subtle ways to maneuver men into position to bring them into the home board the quickest way possible.
The player decides what's more effective in a particular situation; move two men for a dice turn or apply a dice result to a single man? Say a dice cast ends up with 4 and 2. The backgammon player can have two men moving 4 and 2 spaces each, or have one man do all 6 spaces.
With "doublets," the player moves four men. Doublets are dice results with same numbers, like 2 and 2 or 4 and 4. In all these maneuvers, the backgammon player acts as a leader deciding who to place where for a quick win or take-over.
Time factor is seen more in backgammon, and the player is trained to appreciate it well. By out-racing the opponent in making "points" (a space to be occupied as a base) the backgammon player sees that time is of the essence. Points must be made as fast as possible to limit the opponent's moves.
Two or more men in a space make a point for a backgammon player. A point is a base (or a "franchise," if you may). A player cannot stop or make a touchdown (where one stops after the combined total of a dice) on an opponent's points. Thus, the more points one owns the more limited in movement one's opponent is.
Six succeeding points is a "prime." Primes are for further stalling the opponent's moves. The opponent has to make more than six on dice cast to go over a prime. A prime takes lots of strategizing to make.
The game takes on this course until one player reaches home board and then off it.
Not just a gambling game, backgammon has interesting features that make it an exciting tool for leadership training.