Tavla, Tabula, Bräde, Tavli, Gammon or Duodecim Scripta, as the Greek poet Homer called it, dates back 4600 years and has its roots in Mesopotamia. An early version of the game, called Senate, was found in a royal grave in Egypt in the year 2600 B.C.
In writings by Platon (427 – 347 B.C.) there is evidence that Duodecim Scripta was played on a leather background with 15 stones of two different colors and three dice. The players could move up to three stones depending on what the dice showed. The best known players that can be traced back to ancient times are the Greek Palamedes and the Roman Claudius.
During the first century, the Romans called the game Tabula and in the 6th century the game got the name Alea in Europa and Nard in Asia. The next time the game changed names, was when soldiers brought the game to France and Great Britain during the Roman conquests. The French named the game Jeux de tables and the British called it Tables.
In Greece and around the Mediterranean the game has gone through various changes during the course of history, something which has created numerous versions of the game.
The best know versions are known as Portes (Backgammon), Plakoto (Cutsgammon) och Feuga (Rungammon).
The name Backgammon was first introduced in 1645 in Great Britain and the first rules of the game were established in 1745 by the English gaming expert Edmund Hoyle. The greatest change to the game was when the doubling cube was in introduced. This took place at a gambling club in New York in the 1920s. A consequence of the doubling cube was that the excitement of the game increased and the luck factor was reduced.
The first World Backgammon Championship in the 1960s contributed to an increased interest in the game. The World Championship took place in Las Vegas and the most famous participants were Alexis Obolensky and Aristotelis Onassis. The World Championships were played in Las Vegas until 1975 when Tim Holland from the United States became World Champion for the third time. Until 1978 the championships were played in the Bahamas. Since 1979 the competition takes place in Monte Carlo. Thanks to Swedish World Champions Jerry Grandell (1997) and Jörgen Granstedt (1999 and 2001), Sweden has become one of the best backgammon nations in the world. (Except for in Greece where all the “kafenio” have their own World Champion.)
In Sweden, the game dates back 350 years. In 1961, when the warship Wasa was salvaged, a board was found that can be traced back to the 1600s, when the ship sunk. Approximately 20 years later, in 1982, backgammon enthusiasts Ulf Ring, Johan Aschan, Steffan Nord, P A Von Rosen, Jan-Erik Eriksson, Mona Branting, Harald Nabseth and Mats Hagberg founded the Swedish Backgammon Federation.
Approximately 2347 years after the death of Platon, evidence that “life is a game” was found in the writings of the backgammon philosopher Daniel Bifot. The place where the writing was found is a cavern in Stockholm. The cavern is regarded as holy which is why, only a few days after the find, Douglas Andersson, gammon-enthusiast, founded the Gammon club Piperska Grottan in honour of the young philosopher. This is the place where the original version of the writing is kept and where Swedish backgammon aficionados spend days and nights enjoying winning (as well as losing) in front of their boards. Below you can read Daniel’s wisdom:
Chess shows us what life should be like Backgammon shows us what it really is like
