Backgammon

Backgammon - also known at various times as gammon, tric-trac, tablas reales and more - is one of the most popular of all board games. The game's origins go back many centuries and, although there have of course been changes and innovations, many of the basic concepts and rules of backgammon today would be familiar to those earlier gamers. Today you can buy all manner of backgammon sets, from magnetic travel sets through to luxury leather inlaid boards. Online internet play is also popular, though personally I still prefer face to face gaming.

What Is Backgammon

Backgammon is a race game for two players. The game is played on a rectangular board whch contains 24 spaces ("points"). Each player has 15 pieces which are initially placed at assigned points. The players then move their pieces in opposite directions around the board, attempting to get all of their pieces home ("bearing off") before the opponent. The number of movement points available each turn is determined by the roll of two dice.

A lone piece on a point (a "blot") is vulnerable to capture (said to have been "hit" or "splat") in which case it returns to the beginning of the track. Players must balance moving around the board as quickly as possible with keeping their pieces safe.

One of the appeals of backgammon is the balance between luck and skill. There's enough luck to keep a novice interested yet eough skill that the more experienced player with a better grasp of strategy and tactics will usually win.

History

Exactly when a generic race game became something we'd recognise as backgammon is difficult to say. Backgammon has been traced back to very early games such as Senet and the Royal Game of Ur. The Roman game of Tabula - which replaced the earlier Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum during the first century - appears to be the earliest truly recognisable ancestor of backgammon.

An early Arabic version of the game was Nard and game historian R.C.Bell traces our modern backgammon from this version. This became the popular Middle Ages game known simply as Tables (a word which later became a generic term for any boardgame).

Tables was for a while pushed out of favour by the apearance of chess, but saw an upsurge of popularity in the 15th century. The word "backgammon" is believed to have originated in the 18th century as a variant of "back game" - presumably referring to the process of hitting blots and sending them back to the start.

Probably the most significant modern contribution to the game was the doubling die which was introduced in the 1920s. This allows a player who believes themself ahead to effectively challenge the opponent: "double points or quit".