HISTORY OF BACKGAMMON

Digs have exposed that backgammon conventionally was played on top of wood Backgammon History facades, by stones as pointers, and dice prepared as of bones. The ancient recognized relics supposed to have been utilized in favor of a backgammon-like game date back to 3000 B.C.

ANCESTORS OF BACKGAMMON

Senat

The earliest side of what would afterward turn out to be backgammon is the Egyptian game of Senat, recognized as Thirty Squares as well (employed date back to 3000 B.C.) small is identified on the rules of the game however the boards that have been discovered contain 3x10, 3x12, plus 3x6 squares.

The Royal Games of Ur

At what time the imperial grave of the Ur al Chaldees, the hub of Sumer, was exposed archeologist discovered wooden backgammon boards old back to approximately 2600 B.C.

Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum

The Romans named their side of backgammon Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum (The Game of 12 Lines). The game, supposed to be a straight successor to the Egyptian Senat, was taken part on top of a leather plank by means of 30 markers, 15 ebony as well as 15 ivory.

Tabula

The Romans fetched backgammon toward Northern Europe after it attacked Britain during the 1st Century. Next to the moment the game was usually known by Tabula.

Alea

Semi a millennium afterward it acquired the name Alea and began to appear progressively similar to the backgammon we play nowadays.

Nard

Near 800 A.D. a backgammon-resembling game had attained Asia plus the Persian Empire. Nard was extremely close to Alea through 2 die accustomed to shift the 30 markers.

The game too turned out to be accepted in China below the name T’Shu-p’u and within Japan where it was known by Sugoroku.

Modern Backgammon

The start of modern backgammon is marked by the introduction of the doubling cube, first used in the 1920s in New York City. In 1931 the backgammon rules were modified to what basically governs the game today.

Prince Alexis Obolensky, or "Oby", is usually accredited by means of the fast expansion of backgammon participants several 30 years ago. Oby prearranged the foremost backgammon World Championships in Bahamas.

During 1970s backgammon obtained numerous notices within the media and numerous newspapers faceted backgammon columns.

Next to the 1980s the younger invention twisted toward video games and the game of backgammon found its fame reducing.

Online backgammon

During recent years, but, that drift has been upturned due to online backgammon on web. Participants can currently discover decent rivals by each and every hours of the day just by logging on top of your computers. You can play backgammon by download backgammon from internet
The history of backgammon in two parts
Part 1: Origins
Backgammon is one of the oldest games in existence alongside Go and Chess. It is probably about 5,000 years old and may well have originated in what today is Iraq – previously Mesopotamia. Recent evidence supporting this was found when these very early dice (made of human bones) were discovered in the area:

Mesopotamian Backgammon


The board with its twenty-four points and thirty checkers (or pieces or men) has been around for a long time but the game has not always been called backgammon. Other games which used the same board were Senet and Mancala. The Romans were the first to make it truly popular with their version called “Duodecum Scripta et Tabulae” or “Tables” for short.

Frescoes in many a Roman villa depict the game in progress (the players were not always completely clothed)! Here is an example (clothed version) from Pompeii:


Pompeii Backgammon


The Emperor Claudius was a keen player – he had a special board built on the back of his chariot to relieve the tedium of long journeys. Emperor Nero was a prodigious gambler. He played for today’s equivalent of $10,000 a game. History does not record what happened to his opponents if they lost!

For many years there were different rules depending upon one’s level in society – true of many pastimes.. Whilst the officers wagered large stakes it became so popular during the Crusades that soldiers below a certain rank were barred from playing.

The history of any game can be tracked by looking for references in both art and literature. It is mentioned in early literature, both in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales:

“They daucen, and they pleyen at ches and tables.”

and by Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost.

The word backgammon first appeared in print in 1645. No one knows for sure where the name came from, but most scholars agree that in all likelihood it comes from the Middle English ‘baec’ = back and ‘gamen’ = game.

Backgammon appears consistently in art throughout the second millennium, most famously in “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch and “The Triumph of Death” by Pieter Brueghel. Quite frequently it appears in tavern scenes and often there is a brawl going on - I wonder why that could be? Here it is in Steen’s “Backgammon Fight”:


Backgammon Fight


The game continued to be played throughout the latter stages of the last millennium but it had constant battles with authorities and the church who wanted to ban it because of the gambling element – not too dissimilar to some areas of the world today, particularly since America brought in its crass and ludicrous Internet gambling laws (surely they are not long for this world??)

Its popularity continued through Victorian times (see the tranquil image below) and it was very popular at country house weekend parties.


Victorian Backgammon Parties


However by the early 1920’s the game was losing its appeal. In the Roaring Twenties in New York City the games were just taking too long to play and it was difficult to wager (and therefore win) large amounts of money.
The Backgammon history (the advent of doubling)
As we saw in the previous article, backgammon was losing its appeal in the fast-paced society of the 1920’s because the games took too long and it was difficult to wager large amounts of money.

Whether the game would have survived we can only surmise but some time around 1925 or 1926 two things that would change the game forever happened at almost the same time.

The first and most important event occurred when some genius (or it may have been a group of them) in either New York or Boston came up with the idea of being able to double the stakes. We must assume that redoubling was invented at the same time and there is no contrary evidence to suggest otherwise. Sadly, despite extensive research, we do not know exactly who invented the concept so all we can do is give a heartfelt thank you to whoever it was!

The doubling cube did not arrive for some years and initially matchsticks were used to record the stakes. The first type of doubling device was a dial. An example – which I was lucky enough to buy on eBay - is shown here:

backgammon doubling dial.


This device lasted for some time as evidenced by this photo of Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. and Joan Crawford (they were married from 1929 to 1933):

Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. and Joan Crawford playing backgammon

Exactly when the doubling cube arrived is not recorded.

The second event was the arrival of the multi-player version of the game that has always been known, even in the 1920’s, as a chouette. Chouette is the French for screech owl, a bird that is set upon by many of its own kind so we can see how apt the name is! It was originally used in the card game Picquet.

Now not only could the stakes be doubled but with more players in the game winnings and losses rose exponentially! Backgammon became the perfect game for the 1920’s.

It is safe to say that doubling, whilst it solved the backgammon problems of the day and introduced a whole new level of skill, was initially very poorly understood. If you read any of the books from that era you will find some very dubious advice indeed. The basic concept of the 25% take-point was not explained in any book until Crawford and Jacoby published “The Backgammon Book” in 1970!

Georges Mabardi, author of Vanity Fair’s “Backgammon to Win” (1930) had this view of Doubling: “If two absolutely perfect players engaged in a match, there would never be an accepted double.” Close, but no cigar!

Chris Bray
Sep 07