Tavla

Tavla, backgammon in Turkish, is a very popular game in its homeland, played in Turkey local cafes, parks and even the cities' streets. Tavla is played on a standard backgammon board. The board set up and the movements of the checkers are exactly the same as in regular backgammon. Tavla rules are also almost the same as regular backgammon rules, except the following:

• Tavla is played without the doubling cube. Thus, Tavla players have less strategic decisions to humble themselves about, and the speed becomes an important factor.


• To start the Tavla game, each player rolls a single die. The player who rolled the higher dice begins the game, but unlike in the backgammon game, he rerolls both dice to make the first movement.


• When a Tavla player hits an opposite blot in his home board, he may not run for cover afterwards as in backgammon. The hitting player has to either cover that checker with another checker of his own or leave it and expose it to the possibility of being hit by the opponent.


• There is not a triple win (backgammon) in Tavla. If the losing player has borne off one checker or more, subtracts one point of his score, and if he has not borne off even a single checker, he subtracts two points.

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