Backgammon

Backgammon dates back to ancient times

The Backgammon board game can be traced back into ancient times to approximately 5000 years ago. Archaeological digs have revealed this type of game in the Mesopotamian culture of Ur at around 3000 BC. It had shown similar resemblances to today's games. Backgammon is said to be one of the oldest board games on record even older then chess, and can be found in ancient India and Egyptian cultures. It eventually reached Greece who had taken credit for inventing it. The Roman version incorporated three dice for the moves and the game was called "bac gamen" or "back game". It eventually found its way to Persia where it was known as "Takhteh Nard" known as "battle on wood", and was played with two dice.

Backgammon is a game that involves two players, and is played on a board consisting of twenty-four narrow triangles called points. Each triangle will alternate in color and are grouped into four quadrants of six triangles. Each quadrant refers to a players home or outer board. The bar is a ridge down the center of the board that separates the home or outer boards.

In Backgammon the points are numbered for either player starting at that players home board. The outermost point is the twenty-four point which is also the opponents one point. Each player has fifteen checkers of his own color. The checkers are initially lined up as follows: two on each player's twenty-four point, five on each player's thirteen point, three on each player's eight point, and five on each player's six point. Each player has their own pair of dice and a dice cup for rolling. To keep track of the state of the game, a doubling cube is used. It contains numerals 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 on its faces

To start a Backgammon game each player throws a single die. This will determine both the player to go first and also the numbers to be played. The roll of the dice determines how many points a player is to move his checkers forward. The object of the game is for each player to move all their checkers into their own home board and then bear them off. The first player to bear off all their checkers wins the game.

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