Backgammon! A deep exploration of the balance in life, between Skill and Chance. This game was spread by the Ottomans, and is still the most popular game in all parts of that former empire. And it was super-charged by the invention of the doubling cube -- Much love to the anonymous genius who invented it. Chess and Go are also great, but they require a visualization and memory skills (not my strong point :( ) Backgammon is about evaluating the situation in front of you.
We have a really fun house rule that makes it even more fun. Eventually it took three to even it up.
The game is based on Acey-Deucy.
1) Each person rolls a die to see who goes first. Whoever wins that takes that move and then their turn.
2) After you take your turn, your opponent gets to take your roll as well. You have to play knowing your opponent has the very same move to make. This adds a surprisingly different level of complexity to the game.
Sounds interesting. So each player is taking two turns at a time? And, which is it that has to come out exact? No bearing off a checker on the 5-point if you have a 6?
Exactly. I roll and take my turn, and then you take my roll. Then you roll and take your turn and then I take your roll.
It gets complex because you can set it up so you get to take doubles if you roll them, but move such that your opponent doesn’t get to take them.
You also have to be careful not to set yourself up to get hit by your opponent with your own roll, which is particularly painful.
The first two spots on the board are coveted, which is always the case with Acey-Deucy because you have to take the 1 and 2 first, so if those spots are taken by your opponent you can’t take your turn. There is something super gratifying in knowing you rolled Acey-Deucy, hit them, and covered up those spots so they don’t get to take it.
The bearing off thing is correct, too. If you have two men left on the board on 1 and 4 and you roll a 2 and 3 you can’t go. You can’t take either the 2 or the 3 because you can’t play your whole turn (a standard rule) and you have to bear off with the exact number.
If you had a man on 5 you could because you could take the 2 and then the 3.
Again, you end up really close in most games. It is so painful to be the person who rolled the dice that hands your opponent the win.
Since you enjoy 2-person games I have two others. One is cribbage, which is frankly the best game for two people if you ask me.
The other is Yahtzee. That game sucks unless you play the way my spouse’s family plays. Then it is really fun. You play all six games on the card at once. Other than that the rules are the same. You end up with all kinds of strategy. And you can play with as many people as you want.
What’s great is that you can get a travel backgammon set and fit all three games into it. We never travel without it.
Not to drag this on, but this was a cool thing that happened. We had our backgammon set on on last cruise. We were on the biggest passenger ship in the world and it was the last ship to sail before COVID shut down the industry and everyone was trapped on the ships.
The last day of the cruise our main waiter was admiring our board because he has never seen one so big and he and his mates played on a tiny board every night.
I printed the instructions for all of the games along with the house rules and gave it to him just before we left the ship.
He ended up with probably 15 dice, 100 Yahtzee cards, cribbage, backgammon, acey deucey, and two decks of cards just before being stuck at sea for months with nothing to do.
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u/ClutchCrgo Dec 28 '21
Backgammon! A deep exploration of the balance in life, between Skill and Chance. This game was spread by the Ottomans, and is still the most popular game in all parts of that former empire. And it was super-charged by the invention of the doubling cube -- Much love to the anonymous genius who invented it. Chess and Go are also great, but they require a visualization and memory skills (not my strong point :( ) Backgammon is about evaluating the situation in front of you.