Gammon price is how much a gammon is worth to you right now, relative to a plain win. It is the number that explains why strong players attack furiously at some scores and play quietly at others, from identical positions.
A gammon counts two points instead of one. Whether that extra point actually helps you depends entirely on the score. If you are two points from winning a match, a gammon wins it and the extra point is enormously valuable. If you already have enough points that the second one is wasted, the gammon is worth nothing extra and risking anything for it is a mistake.
A high gammon price pushes you toward attacking: hitting loose, playing for a blitz, keeping the opponent's checkers back. A low gammon price pushes you toward safety: take the win, do not gamble for a second point you cannot spend.
This is the cleanest example in backgammon of the score being part of the position. Show a strong player a board with no score and they will tell you the play depends. They are not hedging, they genuinely need the score before the question is well posed.
Post-Crawford and at scores where one side is close to winning, gammon prices reach extremes. These are the positions where club players most often play the technically correct money move and lose the match anyway.
You do not need an equity table to see the range. At double match point, one away for both players, a gammon is worth exactly nothing: the game already decides the match, and a second point has nowhere to go. Gammon price is zero and every aggressive line that risks the win for a gammon is a pure error. Now take the other end. You are four points from winning and the cube sits on 2. A gammon scores 2 times 2, which is 4 points, which is the match. Gammon price is as high as it gets, and plays that would be reckless for money become correct. Same board, same checkers, opposite instructions.
Before a close checker play in a match, ask two questions. First, if I win a gammon here, does the extra point actually reach anything, a match win or a score that changes the cube arithmetic? Second, if I lose a gammon, does the extra point cost me anything I still need? If both answers are no, play for the plain win and stop taking risks. That crude version captures most of what the real number would tell you, and it is available at the board in about three seconds.
Winning a gammon is always better than winning a single game.
Only when the second point is useful to you. If the extra point cannot change the match result, it is worth nothing, and any risk you took to get it was a pure loss. Strong players routinely decline gammon chances that would win them nothing, and that restraint is what the gammon price number formalises.
Play a rated game and every decision gets reviewed afterwards against the best move available. The dice are committed before you roll and checkable after, so the number you end up with is a measure of you, not of luck.
Play a rated game freeA measure of how much a gammon is worth relative to a single win at the current match score. High gammon price favours aggressive play; low gammon price favours taking the safe win.
No. When the second point cannot change the match outcome, playing for a gammon adds risk for no reward.
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