Don't Get Bored, Play the Board

Imagine yourself waking up with your sweetheart feeling groggy and rotten. Then you walk down the stairs to your kitchen to find a bland coffee and some stale bread that you bought a couple of days ago. One word best describes your life - BORING. Then suddenly, you open your drawer and see board game bearing the name BACKGAMMON. Lucky you! Say goodbye to a boring day. Open the board and roll the dice!

Backgammon is one of the most popular board games today. Compete with your rival in this game of chance and skill. But where exactly did this famous game come from? And why the name backgammon?

During the Ancient Egyptian period- a game called "senet" was invented. Archeologists claim that this game resembles backgammon and is also played using a board with several pieces of chips.

Versions of a similar game also can be found in ancient Greece. Well, if the great Greeks had it, absolutely, Romans wouldn't lag behind. They also have this board game of three rows and twelve points each plus pieces used for playing. Persia, on the other hand, also has this game called "nard" which dates back to the eleventh century.

But the game that most resembled backgammon was an Ancient French favorite pastime called "jeux de tables". It is considered as backgammon's predecessor. However, during the Elizabethan era, laws were passed against these table games. But then people are really fond of playing games as their pastime so what they did was to hide behind the authorities to pursue this game of chance. This is probably the reason why it got the name backgammon which came from the root words "back" which is interpreted as playing behind the authorities and "gamen" an ancient English word for game.

The main objective of this game is to be able to remove all pieces from the board. Players roll the dice to determine the number of chips to be taken off the board. When you are the first to remove all your chips from the board, then you are the winner.

Rules vary, however, because there are several rules recognized worldwide regarding the backgammon game. To name some are the Jacoby and the Crawford rules. Variations of the game are also recognized such as the acey-duecey, hypergammon, nackgammon and the like.

Today, backgammon's popularity is at its peak because of casino games and online games which let you play backgammon with players from different corners of the globe.