BACKGAMMON: Origin, Rules, Variety
Script error: No such module "AfC submission catcheck". Archaeological excavations show that backgammon originated in Persia (Iran) around the third millennium BC, and initially, this game had a symbolic and mystical meaning. The word "backgammon" itself comes from the Persian word, which is translated as "a wooden block". Archaeologists have also found elements of the game in Egypt, Greece, the Roman Empire, China, Mexico, but all these finds are dated much later.
The popularity of backgammon is confirmed by numerous ancient writings, which, for example, say that even the Roman emperor Tiberius Claudius (41-54 AD) played backgammon in the I century AD. The historian of that time Suetonius testifies that Claudius loved this game very much and even wrote a book on it, and a board was attached to his chariot to allow playing during long campaigns. The game was called "Tabula" by the Romans at that time ("a board" in Latin), and even then it had almost modern rules: the same board of 24 fields was used, 2 players had 15 checkers each, the goal of the game was to reach home as quickly as possible and take all the checkers outside the board. The difference from the modern rules was that the game started with an empty board, and the participants had to enter their checkers into the game from one half of the board first and then move them in the same direction counterclockwise. Now, this kind is called "Russian backgammon", although the Romans used not two bones, but three. To this day, one position has been preserved, dating from 480, in which the Byzantine emperor Flavius Zeno (years of life 435-491, Emperor 474-491) lost in a seemingly tied position after losing unsuccessful values on three dice at once.
The growing popularity of this game is evidenced by the fact that between 1251 and 1283, by the decree of King Alfonso X the Wise of Leon and Castile (present-day Spain), the very first collection of games in Europe was written, which cited the most famous games at that time. Now, this collection is stored in the library of the monastery of St. Lorenzo del Escorial, located near Madrid (A.X. EL SABIO, Biblioteca Castro, Fundacion Jose Antonio de Castro). The collection consists of 98 pages measuring 42, 16x29, 71 cm, the cover is made of sheepskin, written in calligraphic handwriting, illustrated with 150 richly decorated drawings, and consists of four parts. The first part is devoted exclusively to chess (more precisely, the prototype of modern chess – "Shatranju"), the second one – to games with dice, but the third one is dedicated to backgammon and describes no less than twelve varieties! It should be noted that the varieties of backgammon then significantly differed from each other both in the size of the board and the number of checkers, and the rules. Thanks to the Internet, we can now download this collection in electronic form and get acquainted with all the games listed in it (but it is worth warning that the collection is written in the ancient Catalan language, which is very different from modern Catalan and does not look at all like Spanish). The question arises: when did the modern backgammon board appear? If we consider that before the Roman emperor Claudius there was a game called "The Game of twelve lines" ("Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum"), which only vaguely resembles modern backgammon, and the game "Tabula" is finally almost identical to modern backgammon, then the approximate time of the appearance of a modern board and a set of 15 black and 15 white checkers is the I century AD. But in Europe, they played then, as a rule, with three dice. According to the English sources, the third bone began to be abandoned around the 500s, although one can argue with this – as it will become clear below, most likely around the XVI-XVII centuries. The further spread of the game in Western Europe is largely due to the return of the Crusaders from the Crusades in the XII century. In the XV century, a new game "tric-trac" appeared in France, the name of which, as French books indicate, came from the sound of bones hitting a wooden board.
The French game called "tric-trac" is a very different game from modern backgammon, since it is won not by the one who first takes his checkers outside the board, but by the one who first scores a certain amount of points, and points were awarded during the game for this or that arrangement of his and others' checkers. "Tric-trac" (aka "Big tric-trac", "Grand tric-trac") existed in Europe until about the end of the XIX century and is now unknown to anyone. It is noteworthy that in the European books of the XIX century, the games "Tric-trac", "Backgammon" (modern "Short Backgammon") and "Jacket" (actually modern "Long Backgammon") are given separately from each other . In the Middle Ages, only the highest aristocracy had the privilege to play backgammon. The so-called "Maness Code", compiled in 1300, has been preserved to this day. This is an ancient German medieval illuminated manuscript, which is a collection of secular poetry. Currently, it is kept in the library collection of the University of Heidelberg (Germany). The manuscript consists of 426 parchment sheets measuring 35.5×25 cm, and the peculiarity of this manuscript is that it has a drawing of two people playing at a backgammon board, and three dice are used for the game. According to the postponed checkers, we can conclude that the game was played with the permission of knocking down (chopping). It is important to note that at that time the backgammon board had a modern look, that is, it has not changed since the time of the Roman emperors.
If books describing games have been preserved in the West, then in the East, unfortunately, they have been preserved bit by bit. But there is no doubt that backgammon developed in its own very peculiar way in the East: if games with knocking down checkers became popular in the West, then in the Near and Middle East (Turkey, Iran, Syria, Egypt), the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan) and in the Mediterranean countries of the Balkans (Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and other countries of the former Yugoslavia) – without knocking down. At the same time, which is very surprising, at the same time, games with knocking down checkers have become widespread in India and China, and according to the rules they are almost identical to modern "Short Backgammon". Since there were many varieties of backgammon, respectively, each country had its names, and this led to confusion and did not contribute to the popularization of the game at the level of chess or checkers. This continued until in 1743, the Englishman Edmond Hoyle did something outstanding – he paid special attention to the already well-known game "Backgammon" and described in detail how to win it correctly in his book "A Short Treat on the Game of Back-Gammon" ("A short text about the game "Backgammon"). Hoyle's advice turned out to be extremely interesting, the game began to gain popularity, and Hoyle's book itself has withstood more than three hundred editions. ...This outstanding person in the field of games, having lived for 90 years (1679-1769), is known not only for the fact that at the age of 64 he published a book on backgammon but also for the later release of a whole series of books on card games: "Whist", "Piquet", "Quadrille", "Breg" (the prototype of the modern "Poker"). But he will be remembered by mankind, of course, for his book on "Short Backgammon".
Currently, many books and websites on backgammon indicate that the game "Backgammon" was invented (compiled) by Edmond Hoyle. This is not the case, and there is a lot of evidence for this. For example, five years before Hoyle was born, an English book "The Compleat Gamester – Charles Cotton 1674, London" was published, which describes the rules of two backgammon games: "Irish" (they are also "Irish Backgammon"), and "Backgammon" ("Back-Gammon"). Note that even then the word "Backgammon" appeared, so the name itself can not belong to Edmond Hoyle in any way. "Irish" had completely identical rules with the modern "Backgammon" (up to the initial arrangement of checkers), except that the “doubles” were not doubled. In turn, the "Backgammon" described in the book differed from" Irish " as follows: 1. The “doubles” were doubled (at the same time, the book indicated that this made the game more dynamic and interesting); 2. Four types of winnings were used: - a simple victory (the loser managed to withdraw at least one checker, and the winner brought out his last checker with ordinary dice, that is, not a “double”); - double victory (the loser managed to withdraw at least one checker, but the winner brought out his last checker with a “double”); - triple victory (the loser did not have time to take any checkers out of the board, and the winner took out his last checker with ordinary dice, that is, not a “double”); - a quadruple victory (the loser did not have time to withdraw any checkers, and the winner brought out his last checker with a “double”).
Thus, the main merit of Edmund Hoyle lies not at all in the fact that he invented or compiled the game, but in the fact that he published a detailed TEXTBOOK on the game. If you read Hoyle's book, it turns out that in addition to the rules, there are a lot of tips on the right strategy, calculations, and tables of probabilities for certain bone falls. But this does not diminish the merits of Hoyle at all – after all, with his book, Hoyle, firstly, found the most complex and interesting one among the hundreds of varieties that existed at that time, surprisingly accurately, and, secondly, with his textbook, he drew public attention to this particular variant. In other words, Hoyle's main contribution to "Backgammon" is popularization. But it is just the popularization and not the development or compilation of the rules themselves. Therefore, we must say a huge “thank you” to Hoyle for popularization – largely thanks to his efforts, today "Backgammon" is confidently in the first place in terms of distribution. At the same time, we note that back in 1674 there was a variant of the game where the “doubles” did not double, so we can assume that the doubling occurred around that year. It is believed that the word " Backgammon "was formed as a composite of the English words "Back" and" Game", since the opponent's checker, being beaten, returns. Today, it is the name "Backgammon" that has gained a foothold at the international level. In 1931, the doubling rule appeared in the United States, which dramatically increased the complexity of the game, and since that time, the "Backgammon" with the doubling rule has become officially recognized international rules. ...Do not think that the doubling rule is a kind of new development of the XX century. Not at all. So, in an old French book from 1656 "L'excellent jeu du Trique-Trac par Euverte Jollyvet (à Paris chez la veuve Jean Promé, 1656)" in the description of the game "Tick-tock" (the future "Backgammon"), the modern doubling rule was given one to one, but the increase in the bet was not in geometric progression (1, 2, 4, 8, etc.), but in arithmetic (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). The book itself, by the way, can be downloaded on the Internet.
In addition to the complexity of its strategy, the "Backgammon" has another undeniable advantage over other varieties – it is very fleeting. This seemingly inconspicuous advantage sharply highlighted the game for the better – who wants to spend 15-30 minutes on a game when you can have time to play 5-6 games of "Backgammon" within the same time? Very soon, "Backgammon" literally swept away all other varieties of backgammon for two centuries. Completely and absolutely disappeared already at the end of the XIX century, a very peculiar and original French "Tric-trac" – who would have thought about it at the beginning of the XIX century, because "Tric-trac" was considered the most difficult game for four centuries, and any book on backgammon of those years invariably began with a description of its rules. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the "Jacket" was gradually falling out of use in Europe, such previously widespread games with three dice as the Roman "Tabula" and the German "Garancuet" disappeared. Even the whole trend in the field of backgammon, associated with the ban on the move on their checkers, has disappeared – almost no one knows about the games of this direction now, but even at the end of the XIX century, for example, the game of this direction "Big Game of Backgammon" was the most popular among Armenians and Georgians, and the famous "Revertir" in France occupied a solid second place in popularity after "Tric-trac" (this can easily be determined from French books of the XIX century).
...In 1930, the second world chess champion Emmanuel Lasker (years of life 1868-1941, world chess champion 1894-1921) published a book "Board games and mathematical problems". In this wonderful book, in addition to describing "Chess", "Checkers", the Japanese game "Go", Lasker's own very interesting game "Laska", one of the chapters is devoted to backgammon – "Puff and backgammon". The chapter discusses three varieties: "Puff", "Backgammon" and "Jacket". What is remarkable about this chapter? First, Lasker calls "Backgammon" no other than three parallel names: "Backgammon", "Gammon" and "Tric-trac". This suggests that even then the real French "Tric-trac" was not familiar in Europe, but its former popularity led to the fact that the "Backgammon" itself in Europe was often called nothing else than "Tric-trac".
Secondly, in Europe even then they played "Jacket" (an analog of "Long Backgammon"), but Lasker himself, like many others in Europe, spoke very coolly about it, considering it a game of chance. The reason for this, according to the author of this book, was that according to the rules of the "Jacket", it was allowed to remove any number of checkers from the "head" in one move, up to four when the double was dropped. With this rule, the "Jacket" is largely random (the one who has the most doubles wins more often, especially at the beginning of the game). One may only wonder why no one in Europe came up with the idea to limit the removal of more than one checker per turn from the "head", as it is implemented in modern "Long Backgammon".
Third, "Puff" is a typical German game (Lasker was born in Germany), but Lasker points out that it is inferior to "Backgammon" and is gradually losing popularity in Germany. Lasker does not explain the reason for this, but it is easy to determine – the initial position of the checkers in the "Puff" was the same as in "Russian Backgammon", that is, all the checkers of each participant were located outside the board. This arrangement of checkers deprives in many ways of dynamism (knocks begin after 15-20 moves), the game is "slow" and very long in time. Naturally, with such rules, "Puff" is doomed sooner or later to lose to "Backgammon" in popularity, and in this case, there is another surprise why no one suggested playing "Puff" with the initial location of the "Backgammon", since in this case "Puff" is even more complicated and interesting than the "Backgammon" itself.
The only games that could resist the onslaught of "Backgammon" are games without knocking down checkers, which have deep traditions in the Near and Middle East (Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus), as well as in Russia and the Balkans – in these areas, according to long-standing traditions, varieties of backgammon without knocking down checkers are still more common: in Turkey – "Multezim", in Greece – "Fevga". In Russia, where backgammon penetrated from the Caucasus, "Backgammon" was called "Short Backgammon", and the former, called as "Big Backgammon Game", was transformed into "Mars" at the beginning of the twentieth century, and later, after the appearance of the name "Short Backgammon", was renamed "Long Backgammon". Please note that there is every reason to believe that "Long Backgammon" in Russia originated from "Mars", and not from" Jacket "or" Multezim", which indicates a special and original development of backgammon in Russia. To date, backgammon is widely popular all over the world. In all major capitals of the world, there are amateur clubs and international tournaments are held. But if backgammon is played mainly by individual fans all over the world, then backgammon is played everywhere in Central Asia and the Caucasus, by almost everyone, and this is a significant difference between Europe and the East. From ancient times to the present day, backgammon has been the national game of Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Arabs, and Turks. It is noteworthy that in Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia) and Yerevan (Armenia) there are even bronze monuments to backgammon players. Once again, we note that in the East and the Caucasus, as already mentioned, they play without knocking down checkers.
On the territory of the former USSR, the game without knocking down was most widespread, which means that the game came to Russia from the Caucasus, and not from Europe. It is no accident that the game itself in Russia is called "backgammon", and this word, as already mentioned above, is a modified Persian word "a wooden block". This is confirmed by the book from 1915 by D. I. Sargin "The antiquity of the games of checkers and chess". This book is notable for two points. First, we can conclude that backgammon was practically unknown in the central part of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Secondly, in his book, Sargin calls backgammon nothing else than "Nard – an ancient Persian checkers game". At the same time, Sargin emphasizes that backgammon has been very popular since ancient times among the Caucasian peoples (among the Georgians, who called the game "nardi", and among the Armenians, who called the game "nardy"), and on the entire Black Sea coast. Sargin was particularly surprised that the Armenians and Georgians pronounced the names of dice and, in particular, doubles in Persian (“zars” and “kush”), although, in his opinion, it was much more convenient for them to pronounce them in their native language. This proves once again that backgammon entered the Caucasus from Persia (Iran).
But the name "Tric-trac", which became very popular as the name of games during the Soviet Union, is nothing more than the name of an old French game, and not as a general name of backgammon games. The widespread use of the name "tric-trac" is apparently because before the October Revolution in Russia there was a fashion to imitate France in everything – the best evidence of this is the mention in the well-known "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron", published in the Russian Empire in 1890-1907, only one game of backgammon, namely the French "Tric-trac". The name "Tric-trac" is very ingrained in Russia, and many still associate it with the general name of games on a board with dice and checkers (for example, in many Russian books of the 90s, "Long tric-trac", "Short tric-trac", "Dutch tric-trac", etc. are given in many Russian books).
At the international level, today they play exclusively "Backgammon", and as a result, the following fact can be cited: if training books on "short" backgammon began to appear in the 70s of the twentieth century, then the first training book on the "long" version appeared in 2006 only and then only in electronic form ("Handbook of long backgammon. Theory and practice of the game", author Akhundov Nazim), in 2007 Igor Dergilev from Novosibirsk released " Backgammon. A probabilistic and strategic game" in electronic form, and in 2010 the book "Long Backgammon" by Rodion Chebotarev appeared in paper form. The popularity of backgammon in Russia is evidenced by the fact that many famous Russian statesmen played backgammon in the past, for example, Generalissimo A.V. Suvorov and Field Marshal M. I. Kutuzov, poet A. S. Griboyedov. Among the modern personalities, we can name the most famous Russian actor Yuri Nikulin, who often played backgammon in the circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard with his partner from the clown duo Mikhail Shuidin and with the famous clown Karandash (M. Rumyantsev). The former world chess champions A. Karpov and G. Kasparov, the singer I.Kobzon and many others. There is a photo of the backgammon game of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin with one of the soldiers during his visit to the location of the 201st division in Dushanbe in the spring of 2003 (judging by the arrangement of checkers, the game was "Long").
The Russian Prince Alexey Obolensky (1915-1986), who belongs to the ancient Russian family of the Obolenskys, is partly responsible for the spread of backgammon in the world in the variety "Short Backgammon" ("Backgammon"). After the October Revolution, his parents emigrated to Turkey, where Obolensky became addicted to this game. In the 1960s and 70s, Obolensky traveled a lot, promoting "Short Backgammon", he was one of the founders of the "World Backgammon Club" (The World Backgammon Club) and remained its president until his death. It was Obolensky who managed to organize the first international tournament in Bermuda in 1960, the prototype of further world championships. Since then, Bermuda has remained one of the most popular centers for playing "Backgammon". The merits of the Russian prince are not forgotten – one of the prestigious international Backgammon competitions is called the Obolensky Cup. Just a few words about backgammon computer programs. The popularity of "Short Backgammon" led to the fact that the best programs were developed primarily for this game, and the level of programs grew by leaps and bounds. In 1979, an epoch-making event happened – the Italian world champion of that year, Luigi Villa, accepted the challenge to play against the German program "BKG 9.8" (developer – Hans Berliner). Unexpectedly for himself and everyone else, Villa received a crushing defeat-1:7. For the first time, the world champion was defeated by a computer program! Later, more powerful computer programs appeared (the most famous ones are: 1991 - "TD-Gammon", 1994 – "JellyFish", 1998 – "Snowie", 1999 - "GNU Backgammon"), and needless to say, since then, the strongest Backgammon players are no longer people, but computer programs. For "Long Backgammon", which is popular in Russia only, the first computer program was developed around 2000 (in Russia), but it played extremely poorly. The full-fledged program appeared in the summer of 2015 only and, of course, again in Russia – (by Alexander Shashkov). It can already be assumed that this program is the best player for "long". A few words about books. Before the October Revolution, backgammon books were practically not published in Russian. There were only three books with backgammon rules: "Backgammon explained by the terms and conditions of the game by the rules of playing" (Moscow, 1869), Sergey Galaktionov's encyclopedia "A practical guide to the correct, right, with all the subtleties, playing chess, checkers, billiards, skittles, lotto, backgammon, dominoes, lapta, croquet and birulki" (St. Petersburg, 1880) and the already mentioned "The Antiquity of games of checkers and chess" by D. I. Sargin" (1915).
It is not surprising that there were no uniform rules in Russia, so each region applied its own local rules. In Soviet times, backgammon, although not subject to public condemnation, like card games, but literature on them was still not published. For the first time, an article on backgammon appeared in the journal" Science and Life " under No. 7 for 1975 – under the pseudonym of the author of the article Igor Konstantinov, who was no one else but Igor Lagovsky, a fan of intellectual games, the author of many articles about card solitaire, who was the deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine at the time of writing the article, and in 1980-2008 he was the editor-in-chief already. This article turned out to be the first and last publication on backgammon in the entire history of the USSR – except for samizdats, backgammon rules began to be published since 1990 only and then in all sorts of collections on games, in which only the briefest and subtlest information was given. The first full-fledged book on backgammon was published only in 2000 "All about backgammon" (authors – Yu.N. Amelin, M. Yu. Amelin), the second with a volume of only 32 pages in 2004 – " Backgammon "(author – A.M. Nosovsky, a well-known popularizer of many games, who wrote several books about "Renju," Go"," Reversi "and"Shogi"). Now there are more than a dozen books in Russian.
References[edit]
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