No 1 in Gambling

A screen shot of GNU Backgammon, showing an evaluation and rollout of possible moves

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Medieval players, from the 13th century Carmina Burana

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Wurfzabel.jpg

Backgammon is often played for money stakes. The most common ways that gamblers play is to set a wager on which player can be first to reach a certain score, achieved over however many games necessary; to assign a monetary value to each game (affected by the doubling die, of course), and to play until a certain score is reached or passed; or to assign a monetary value to each game and play games until either player chooses to stop. Backgammon is also available, though not often, at casinos.

Backgammon Chouette

A backgammon chouette is an adaptation of backgammon for three or more players, generally played for money.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few turns from the beginning of a sample game will illustrate the rules of movement. To start the game blue rolls a 4 and green rolls a 1, so blue takes the first turn playing a 4,1. This is an unfavorable opening roll, arguably the worst possible, but blue uses it the best he can. He takes a checker from each of his heavy points by playing 13-9, 6-5.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Dice games are games that use or incorporate a die, usually as a random device.

The following are games which largely if not entirely depend on dice:

Read the rest of this entry »

Two standard six-sided pipped dice with rounded corners.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Dice.jpg