Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Persia. The earliest record of backgammon itself dates to 17th-century England, being descended from the 16th-century game of Irish.
The Computer Olympiad is a multi-games event in which computer programs compete against each other. For many games, the Computer Olympiads are an opportunity to claim the "world's best computer player" title. First contested in 1989, the majority of the games are board games but other games such as bridge take place as well. In 2010, several puzzles were included in the competition.
Tables games are a class of board game that includes backgammon and which are played on a tables board, typically with two rows of 12 vertical markings called points. Players roll dice to determine the movement of pieces. Tables games are among the oldest known board games, and many different varieties are played throughout the world. They are called 'tables' games because the boards consist of four quadrants or 'tables'. The vast majority are race games, the tables board representing a linear race track with start and finish points, the aim being to be first to the finish line, but the characteristic features that distinguish tables games from other race games are that they are two-player games using a large number of pieces, usually fifteen per player.
Sugoroku refers to two different forms of a Japanese board game: ban-sugoroku which is similar to western tables games like backgammon, and e-sugoroku which is similar to Western snakes and ladders.
Nard is an historical Persian tables game for two players that is sometimes considered ancestral to backgammon. It is still played today, albeit in a different form. As in other tables games, the playing pieces are moved around a board according to rolls of dice. It uses a standard tables board, but has a different opening layout and rules of play from that of backgammon.
Acey-deucey is a tables game, a family of board games that includes backgammon. Since World War I, it has been a favorite game of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Merchant Marine. Some evidence shows that it was played in the early 1900s aboard U.S. Navy ships. The game is believed to be rooted in the Middle East, Greece, or Turkey, where there were variants in which the game started with pieces off the board.
Plakoto (Πλακωτό) is a tables game for two players that is popular in Greece. The object is for the player to bring all 15 pieces around to his or her own home board and then bear them off. The player who bears off all 15 pieces first wins the game. This game is usually played along with two other variants, Févga and Pórtes. Together these three games are called Távli, and are played in sequence usually one after the other. Game is three, five or seven points. A Middle Eastern version of this game is Mahbusa, and the Bulgarian version of Plakoto is known as Tapa and also as Tsillitón (Τσιλλιτόν), in Cyprus. Parlett places Plakoto in the same group as the popular mediaeval game of English, as well as the French games of Tieste and Impérial, the Italian game of Testa and Spanish Emperador.
Tavli, sometimes called Greek Backgammon in English, is the most popular way of playing tables games in Greece and Cyprus and is their national board game. Tavli is a compendium game for two players which comprises three different variants played in succession: Portes, Plakoto and Fevga. These are played in a cycle until one player reaches the target score - usually five or seven points.
Tavla is a Turkish tables game. It often refers to the western game of Backgammon and to tables games in general. However, it also refers to the more traditional game described here. Note that Turkish sources may refer to western Backgammon as "Modern Tavla" to distinguish it. The Persian name for the game is Takhteh or Takhte.
EinStein würfelt nicht! is a board game, designed by Ingo Althöfer, a professor of applied mathematics in Jena, Germany. It was the official game of an exhibition about Einstein in Germany during the Einstein Year (2005).
The backgammon chouette is a variant of backgammon for three or more players. Traditionally played in person, today, the internet allows this form of backgammon to be played across different countries and various platforms. The chouette is a fast-paced game, featuring frequent use of the doubling cube, discussion and dispute of possible moves, and shifting rivalries among players.
The first moves of a backgammon game are the opening moves, collectively referred to as the opening, and studied in the backgammon opening theory. Backgammon opening theory is not developed in as much detail as opening theory in chess, which has been widely studied. This is because following the first move in backgammon, there are 21 dice roll outcomes on each subsequent move and many alternative plays for each outcome. Therefore, the tree of possible positions in backgammon expands much more rapidly than in chess; by the third roll there are about 25,000 different possibilities.
Neurogammon is a computer backgammon program written by Gerald Tesauro at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. It was the first viable computer backgammon program implemented as a neural net, and set a new standard in computer backgammon play. It won the 1st Computer Olympiad in London in 1989, handily defeating all opponents. Its level of play was that of an intermediate-level human player.
In backgammon, there are a number of strategies that are distinct to match play as opposed to money play. These differences are most apparent when a player is within a few points of winning the match.
The following is a glossary of terms used in tables games, essentially games played on a Backgammon-type board. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific, but applicable to a range of tables games.
Irish or the Irish Game was an Anglo-Scottish tables game for two players that was popular from the 16th to the mid-18th centuries before being superseded by its derivative, the "faster paced" backgammon. In its day, Irish was "esteemed among the best games at Tables." Its name notwithstanding, Irish was one of the most international forms of tables games, the equivalent of French toutes tables, Italian tavole reale and Spanish todas tablas, the latter name first being used in the 1283 El Libro de los Juegos, a translation of Arabic manuscripts by the Toledo School of Translators.
Verquere is an historical tables game. It was played by two players on a tables board of the same type as used in backgammon, but the direction and rules of play were quite different from that game.
Long Nardy, also just Nardy, is a Russian tables game for two players. It is also played in Armenia as Long Nardi or Nardi. It probably originated in the historical Persian game of Nard. It requires a tables board, 15 men apiece and two dice.
Tawula is an historical tables game once popular in Asia Minor and Egypt. It is sometimes called Turkish Backgammon in English, however this is misleading as there are fundamental differences; for example, both players move in the same direction in Tawula, whereas in Backgammon they move in opposing directions.
Fevga is a popular Greek tables game for two players. It is usually played as one of three different games in succession – the others being Portes and Plakoto – in social gatherings or coffee shops. When played in this way, it is known as Tavli. Very similar games, with slight variations, are Turkish Moultezim, Russian Narde and Egyptian and Lebanese Tawla 31 or Maghribiyyah.
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