Two players, thirty chips, one board, one winner. Backgammon is one of the most ancient board games, where players have to use their wit besides of their good luck.
This board game is the oldest game of his kind. It is created 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia.
Between the years, 1922 and 1934, the archeologist Leonard Wooley founded at some graves a board as the backgammon boards we all know nowadays.
After its introduction in Europe, made by the Persians, it is known that the nobility and the royalty used to play it. In Egypt, it was know by the name “Senat”, the Romans called it “Tabula”, in England “Tables”, in Italy “Tavola Reale”, in Spain “Tablas Reales”. Greeks still call it “Tavli”, in France is known as “Le Trictrac”, in China and Japan they called the game “T'shu-p'u” and “Sugoroko” but it is played at a circular board.
The name backgammon, as we know it today, was given to the game in the 17th century because of the ability of the chips to return to the game.
In some countries, like in Japan or England, the game was forbidden and in some extreme cases, the boards were burnt.
King Alfonso X wrote the first known rules (13th century), he wrote fifteen different versions of the backgammon game. On the 16th century, Edmond Hoyle wrote the rules that were used by the Americans in 1931 to create the actual rules.
Today is a widely played game, people from all around the world play backgammon, tournaments are being organized everyday worldwide, you can play it at your home in a board or at your computer, and you can play it via internet.
Backgammon consists of a board with twenty-four triangles, twelve in each side of the board. Players sit one in front of the other, and each one of them has fifteen chips. Chips are usually black and red, and each player chooses a color to play with. The game uses five dice, four regular ones and one to “Duplicate”. The Duplicate dice has the following values: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64.
The object of the game is to move all of your chips to the home and then take them out of the board. The player that does this first wins the game
