Stalling for Time Is Stalling Out

We all see it sometimes. Players will hold out on their forward advance to allow straggling pieces to catch up. Instead of moving home as quickly as possible with the available pieces, they'll have a chunk of pieces half way along and scattered singles that they're trying to clump into that group.

Their problem is they're forgetting that clump of pieces will have to be broken up again to get them home. While it's a good idea to get straggling pieces moving along and out of harm's way, it's not something you want to stall out your advance to do.

Pieces are doing nothing in the middle of the board. At least those pieces in your opponent's home are taking up valuable real estate and blocking his own completion, but those pieces in the middle are neither blocking major moves or moving into your home.

You do want to protect your stragglers and get them moving in groups, but you don't want to focus on this over focusing on moving chips into your home. That's more important. It's not too terribly difficult to bounce a single piece forward a few spaces, but it is difficult to move a big clump of pieces along.