Variations

Forum Archive : Variations

Takhteh From:   Bruce Scott Address:   brucescott14@attbi.com Date:   13 March 2003 Subject:   Takhteh vs. backgammon Forum:   rec.games.backgammon Google:   IE8ca.81714$6b3.276742@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net Hello. I'm a relatively clueless backgammon newbie. I signed up for a backgammon tournament at my school. Before I did so, I asked what rules were in place. The first question I specifically asked about Jacoby. The organizer had no idea what I was talking about. It turns out that we weren't going to be playing with a doubling cube at all. Oh well. He didn't have a set of rules for me to read...but intimated that "it was just backgammon". I guess I should have pressed him a little bit more. I was playing a match, up 3-0 (first to five points). If I understand the terminology, this is 2-away, 5-away. We had kibitzers. In this game, my opponent had a failed back game. I was bearing checkers off. Opponent had two checkers on the ace point and a blot on 3. My roll allowed me to hit the blot on three and bear that checker off. After I did this, the kibitzer said this was illegal. ?! After an exchange that became somewhat heated (everyone cooled down afterwards), it turns out that the organizer (and some of the players) had a different game in mind than what I understood to be "backgammon". The spelling they gave me for their game was "takhteh". My opponent and I agreed to finish our game using the rules that we both understood that we started playing with (thus a gammon win and 5-0 match win). From now on, however, I will be expected to be playing takhteh. I asked for a copy of the rules. The organizer still didn't have them for me. "It's just like American backgammon [his phrase, I rankled a bit at it], except for this one little difference." Not being able to hit and move doesn't seem like a "little" difference to me. I plan on continuing to play in this tournament. I have an entry fee invested and am doing well so far. There are a couple of hundred dollars at stake (an amount of money that matters to me--pretend that number is higher in your mind if this is not an amount that matters to you). I'm already into the fourth round. (It appears that we are playing some sort of double-elimination with Swiss pairings, but the organizer is once again unable to explicitly tell me how he is pairing.) So I expect to be playing someone who is 3-0 next round. The thing is, I expect this to be one of the Persian students who actually knows how to play takhteh. :) I tried punching takhteh into the Yahoo search engine. I couldn't find a set of rules. Besides a set of rules, I would also be interested in strategy advice about how to change the way I play in comparison to backgammon as played on FIBS. (I am really hoping that I'm not going to find out that the play is so different that my backgammon skill, such as it is, is largely wasted.) Thanks for humoring me, Bruce Scott Kees van den Doel  writes: Takhteh is Persian for "backgammon". No doubling cube, no "hit and run" in your homeboard (you can move to another free point as long as you don't safety the blot that hit except by covering with another) , and no backgammons. For the rest it's the same. ME  writes: From Greece and Rome, the game grew in popularity finding it's way finally to Persia where it was known as "Takhteh Nard" which, roughly translated, means "Battle on Wood" and the three dice method was reduced to two by the Persian players. see http://me.essortment.com/backgammonhisto_rquv.htm http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/game-recon-irish.html has some interesting early backgammon rules, none like what you found though. Amir Shahroudy  writes: I am persian and I am playing Takhteh too much. I have a comment for "no hit and run" rule in Takhteh. After you hit a checker in your homeboard, you can also bear off your checker.   Did you find the information in this article useful?           Do you have any comments you'd like to add?

 

Variations

Acey-deucy  (J. Nagel, Dec 2004) 

Acey-deucy  (Steve Ewert, June 1998) 

Acey-deucy  (Lee+, Jan 1997) 

Acey-deucy  (John David Galt+, Dec 1995) 

Acey-deucy  (James Eibisch, Apr 1995) 

Backwards play  (Colin Bell, Feb 1996) 

Bad advice  (Jason Lee+, Mar 2004) 

Best-of-n variant of match play  (Tim Chow+, Feb 2009) 

Cancelgammon  (Ilia Guzei+, Mar 2004) 

Domino backgammon  (Laury Chizlett, Sept 1999) 

Duodecagammon  (David Moeser, Dec 2000) 

Duplicate backgammon  (Dean Gay+, Jan 1997) 

Duplicate backgammon  (Albert Steg, Feb 1996) 

Exact bearoff  (Chris Moellering+, Dec 2002) 

Fevga  (George, Sept 2004) 

Fevga (or Moultezim)  (Igor Sheyn+, May 1995) 

Freeze-out match  (Dave Brotherton, July 1998) 

Gabgammon  (jckz, Oct 2005) 

Greek backgammon  (Alexandre Charitopoulos, Aug 2003) 

Greek backgammon  (Alexandros Chatzipetros, June 1997) 

Greek backgammon  (Marc Jacobs+, Feb 1994) 

Hit man  (Matt Reklaitis, Jan 2004) 

Hyper backgammon  (Gregg Cattanach+, Dec 2000) 

Hyper backgammon  (Michael A Urban, Oct 1993) 

International backgammon  (Bob Lancaster+, Oct 2002) 

Jacquet  (Mark Driver, June 2001) 

Longgammon  (Michael Strato, Dec 2000) 

Low number first, fixed dice, others.  (Walter Trice, Jan 1997) 

Mexican  (Tom Henry, Apr 1997) 

Middle Eastern backgammon  (Alan Cairns, Mar 2002) 

Misere (backgammon to lose)  (Jason Lee+, July 2004) 

Misere (backgammon to lose)  (Jason Lee+, Apr 1995) 

Misere, Chase, Skewed dice  (Stein Kulseth, Jan 1997) 

Nackgammon  (Ken Arnold, July 1996) 

Nackgammon opening moves  (Warwick+, Feb 2002) 

Narde  (narde, Nov 2006) 

Nardi  (KL Gerber+, Nov 2002) 

No hit  (RedTop+, May 2004) 

Nuclear backgammon  (Walt Swan, Apr 1997) 

Old English  (Nick Wedd+, Feb 1996) 

One roll lookahead  (Stephen Turner, Mar 1997) 

Opening slot rule  (Gregg Cattanach, June 2006) 

Other variations  (Douglas Zare, Feb 2000) 

Plakoto  (Ed Dengler+, May 1995) 

Plakoto  (Pasteel M., Feb 1994) 

Plakoto express  (Athansios Vagias, Feb 2005) 

Portes  (George, Sept 2004) 

Roll-over  (Edward D. Collins, Oct 1997) 

Russian backgammon  (Daavid Turnbull, Aug 1991) 

Shesh Besh  (G.S., May 2003) 

Simborg Rule  (Scott+, Feb 2005) 

Slot backgammon  (Fabrice Liardet+, Aug 2008) 

Sudden death, Woodpecker, Gerhardsen  (Fredrik Dahl, Jan 1997) 

Tablestakes betting  (TrueMoneygames, June 2002) 

Takhteh  (Bruce Scott+, Mar 2003) 

Tavla  (Arda Findikoglu, Nov 2004) 

Tavla  (ucc02cx+, Feb 1997) 

Tavli (Portes, Plakoto, and Fevga)  (Jens Larsen, July 1997) 

Tracy turn around  (Michael J. Zehr, Feb 1996) 

Tri-gammon  (Gregg Cattanach, Sept 2000) 

Trictrac  (David Levy+, May 1998) 

Trigammon  (James Eibisch, Jan 1997) 

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