The oldest recorded game in history, backgammon traces its roots to
the ancient Mesopotamian game tabula, which appears in an epigram of
Byzantine Emperor Zeno (476–481 A.D.). Further archaeological
excavations have placed the possible date of origin of backgammon to
3000 B.C.
Backgammon is a board game for two players. Each player has fifteen
pieces (checkers) which move between twenty-four triangles (points)
according to the roll of two dice. The objective of the game is to
be first to bear off, that is, to move all fifteen checkers off the
board.
Though the gameplay is quite basic—each player is trying to move his
checkers to his home board and then bear them off before his
opponent is able to do so—backgammon incorporates strategy insofar
as with each dice roll, the player must choose between multiple
options for movement of the checkers. Furthermore, the doubling
cube, which raises the stakes of the present game when a match
consists of multiple games, and rules like the Crawford Rule and the
Jacoby Rule, introduce more strategic intricacies. Experts have also
developed a nomenclature to define commonly used general strategies
for play such as the running game and the backgame. |
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