No leading backgammon player would have a weak-tight style…..why? Well there are numerous reasons for this but the main one in cash game play is because it simply is too tight to make money. The style gets exploited by strong players of equal or greater ability but it also fails to extract the proper value from weaker players as well. Do not get me wrong here; if your opponent is truly terrible then a weak-tight style can be profitable. However once players reach a certain level of sophistication then you need to loosen up and starting taking advantage of small edges and your opponents weaknesses.
So it is clear then that no good player would ever use this style or would they? Well there are situations in tournament matches where a player who had the lead and who was close to victory would want to make it as difficult as possible for their opponent to get back into the game. So in this instance then a strong player may have it in their interests to play a weak-tight style but this would only be temporary and as a reaction to a certain match condition.
It is similar in principle to a football team being 1-0 ahead and going on all out defence for the last five minutes to survive the game out and take the victory. So it is clear then that a weak-tight style does have its uses in certain game conditions and backgammon is no different. However these are the exceptions that prove the rule. A weak tight style in backgammon will reduce variance but variance is something that strong players embrace because they know and understand that to make the maximum profit possible requires an expansion of play that means that the best style would be a looser and aggressive style that exploited your opponent’s weaknesses.
