Playing the game of Backgammon.
Introduction.
Backgammon is one of the worlds’ most popular board games; it is over 5000 years old and originated in what are now the near east Arabic states. Played between two people, the game has many variations and rules. However, the basic object of a Backgammon game is to move your ‘counters’, which are small discs or tiles, into the area that your opponents counters occupy at the start of the game. Once they’re moved into your opponents space you can then start to remove your counters from the board; the first person to remove all their counters wins the game. Exactly what opportunities arise for a player to move their counters around the board is determined by the rolling of a dice. Subsequently Backgammon is a game of chance, dependant on the role of the dice, and skill - dependant on the choices a player makes when moving their counters.
Changes in how Backgammon can be played.
Being such an ancient game Backgammon has a tradition of being a game played face-to-face with someone else. Due to the element of chance in the ‘throw of a dice’, unlike Chess, Backgammon did not lend itself to either postal or telephone games. However, the advent of the personal computer opened up the opportunity for people to play Backgammon against a computer and then, when web-browsers made the internet widely available; the opportunity to play someone else ‘online’ arose. By the 1980s Backgammon computer programs had been developed that could beat even a Backgammon expert; today they can no longer be said to raise any real interest in Backgammon players. However, the opportunities arising from playing a virtual ‘face-to-face’ game over the internet has revolutionized the way the game can be played and has stimulated the interest of Backgammon players all over the world.
The development of online Backgammon games.
The first internet server dedicated to enabling people to play Backgammon online dates back to the opening of the ‘world wide web’ to the public in general. Like Chess, Backgammon is the sort of board game that attracts players from academic backgrounds; and remembering that one of the world wide webs predecessors had been computer links between educational and research establishments - it should be of little surprise to learn that the first internet server dedicated to Backgammon games, dates back to 1992. Today anyone sitting anywhere in the world can organize a game of Backgammon against someone else over the internet - using a virtual backgammon board and a random number generator for the dice. Also, Backgammon tournaments are regularly held over the internet that can carry substantial prize money for the winner.
Betting and gambling in Backgammon.
The element of chance introduced by the rolling of a dice makes Backgammon a game attractive to people who like to bet or gamble on the outcome of a game or even a single throw of the dice. As games of Backgammon usually take about 30 minutes at most to complete - players will normally play more than one game, typically say three or five, with the first person to attain an unbeatable number of wins being the overall winner. So, bets can be made against winning a game or a series of games, or even the winner of a Backgammon tournament. Other bets can be made according to how many counters might be on any one point (or position) of the board at any one time - or just about anything else imaginable. One variant of the Backgammon game is the introduction of what is a called a ‘doubling cube’. Whilst the ‘doubling cube’ was originally introduced to the game in order to speed up match play and make players rethink their playing strategy; its introduction to a match can affect the gambling patterns of the game as well as the games outcome.