No 1 in Gambling

Medieval players, from the 13th century Carmina Burana

Backgammon is widely played in the Middle East and Central Asia, particularly in cafes. There are four main variants played in the Middle East:

1) the European game as described above and known as ifranjiah (meaning Frankish in Arabic); "Takhte Nard" is the Iranian version.

2) shesh besh (Shesh means six in Persian and Hebrew and Besh means five in Turkish) in Azerbaijan, Israel, and Uzbekistan and tavla in Turkey;

3) mahbusa (meaning 'imprisoned')

4) maghribiyya.

The most popular of those is probably mahbusa. In this game each player's 15 checkers are all initially positioned on his 24-point. When hit, an isolated checker is not placed on the bar. Rather the hitting piece sits on top of the hit piece forming a block, i.e. the same rules apply as if the point was occupied by two or more pieces of the same colour. The checker which has been hit is 'imprisoned' and cannot be moved until the opponent removes his piece: hence the name of the game. Sometimes a further rule requires that a player must bring his first checker to the opponent's home board before moving any other checkers. Whether or not this rule is applied, a rapid advance to the opponent's side of the board is desirable as imprisoning the opponent's checkers on his home table is highly advantageous.

An interesting feature of backgammon as played in some Arab countries is that Persian or Kurdish numbers, rather than Arabic ones, are called out by a player announcing his dice rolls.

People in Iranian plateau and Caucasus region, especially in Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, are very fond of playing Narde. In Georgia they play mainly the "short Narde", a slightly simplified version of ifranjiah. In Iran it is called "Takhte Nard". In Armenia and Azerbaidjan experienced players prefer to play "long Narde", which requires more skill and even "knowledge" of some non-written strategic methods. As in 'mahbusa' all 15 checkers of a player are initially positioned on his 24-point, but there is a principal difference. One is forbidden to put his checker at a point occupied by opponent's checker. So there is no "hitting" and no "imprisonment" in the long Narde game. The main strategy is to secure playing "big pairs" by one's own checkers and prevent as much as possible doing the same by the opponent.

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