India or China?

In between all these historical evidence we are still not sure what is the real origin. If we take a look at the history of games India or China can be the best guess.

Each civilization produces games of skill; Indians made the chess. Chinese played a similar version which shows that there was commerce across the Himalayas. Connection between chess is backgammon is still unknown.

Parcheesi, an ancient Indian game is primarily a four-person game, played on a board, in which each player has several identical men. Unlike modern backgammon, the men start off the board (as they do in the Navy game of acey-deucy and in some other forms of backgammon).

In Parcheesi a player who rolls a doublet makes his play and then takes an extra roll; in acey-deucy a player who rolls an ace-deuce (1-2) plays it and any double he wishes, and then gets an extra roll; in backgammon a doublet number is played four times, which is the same as two plays.

The object of the game Parcheesi, as in backgammon, is to “bear off” all your men from the board, and in both games a player must bring all of his men into his home sector before be can start to bear them off. Further, in both games a single man or “blot” is a weakness since an opponent can play to that point and send that man off the board. And in both games two or more men on a point are very strong; in Parcheesi even more so than in backgammon, since an opponent may not even pass such a point.

A number of versions of backgammon can be found throughout the Far East. In China there is the game called shwan-liu. In Japan they play sunoroku, which omits the bar. In Korea they play ssang-ryouk; in Thailand, len sake or saka; and in Malaya, main tabal.



<<Previous: Pharaohs Playing Backgammon | Next: It’s all Greek>>