Since We're Talking About Games...

Your faithful correspondent is old enough (or young enough depending on your age) to remember the last Backgammon boom back in the Seventies. The man for whom I worked at the time actually had a lathe hand making twelve dollars an hour (and that was pretty good jack back then) turn him a set of backgammon men from walnut and maple.

It was the introduction of the doubling cube that set off the boom. The doubling cube was a die on which was stamped the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6. When players started a game the cube was set at 1. That meant that if the players were betting one dollar per point the winner would win one dollar for every man left on the board by the opponent. Turning the cube raised the stakes to two dollars per man and if the challenger did not accept the raise the game was over with the declining player paying the original stakes for every man on the board over the number the proposing player had on the board. If the challenged player accepted the challenge he would turn the cube to 3, meaning that he raised the stakes by a factor of three. It was a game, if played for money and with a doubling cube, resulted in the fast transfer of money.

At that time backgammon clubs sprang up and the names of famous people such as Lucille Ball and Hugh Hefner were attached to the game. Many books were written about playing backgammon for blood, and there were backgammon cruises, backgammon weekends and backgammon teachers running about like latter day Hoyles.

Since those days the game has fallen into the same slot that mah jong has -- a great game that has been displaced by lesser games because of money. In fact, backgammon may have fallen into an even deeper hole. Mah jong is still played enthusiastically among Asians in the US and among retirees and Jewish grandmothers. But backgammon has pretty much been forgotten except for a segment of quietly moneyed aficionados. And it's a rotten shame.

Backgammon is one of those rare games that seems to rely equally on skill and chance. A Persian king once said that the game was more like real life than chess because it wasn't all mind and wasn't like dice because one was able to use chance to one's advantage. It is a game that is capable of change according to circumstances i.e., the Navy and Marine version known as Acey-Deucey. It's easy to play and difficult to master. And maybe that's the reason it's not more popular.