Well when I first started playing this, I played it like I do my Backgammon Race games (which I'm pretty good at) - which is try to keep a few checkers in the bar to try and mess up the other person.... but this did not work!
So my new stategy is to try to play it more like backgammon - that is get the checkers off my bar more quickly. Not sure how well this will work, but I'm at least started to win more games now.... :-)