Backgammon is one of the oldest board games still played today, with roots stretching back over 5,000 years. From ancient Mesopotamia to modern computer champions, the game has been continuously reinvented by every civilization that touched it.
Ancient Origins (3000-1000 BC)
The Royal Game of Ur, dating to around 2600 BC, is one of backgammon's earliest known ancestors. Discovered in the ruins of the Sumerian city of Ur (modern Iraq), it used 14 squares and dice-like sticks. Egyptians played Senet, also dating to roughly 3000 BC, which combined racing and ritual symbolism. Both games featured the core mechanic that defines backgammon today: rolling dice to race pieces around a track.
Roman Tabula (1st century AD)
By the Roman Empire, the game had evolved into Tabula — played on a 24-point board with three dice. Emperor Zeno's famous loss, recorded in a 6th-century Greek epigram, is the oldest preserved backgammon problem in history. The dice were unkind to him, and his position is still studied today.
Persian Nard & Medieval Tables
In the 6th century, Persia developed Nard, which spread throughout the Islamic world and influenced the game's evolution. Medieval Europe played "Tables" — a family of related games on the same board, including Trictrac in France and Tavle in Scandinavia. The game we now call backgammon was standardized in 17th-century England, with the name appearing in print around 1645.
The Doubling Cube Revolution (1920s)
In the 1920s, an anonymous member of a New York gambling club introduced the doubling cube. This single innovation transformed backgammon from a luck-heavy race into a deep strategic game requiring constant risk assessment. Suddenly players had to calculate not just how to move, but when to raise the stakes — and when to fold.
The Modern Era & Paul Magriel
In 1976, Paul Magriel — nicknamed "X-22" — published "Backgammon," still considered the most influential book on the game ever written. Magriel codified strategic concepts like priming, holding games, and racing that earlier players relied on by instinct. His New York Times column and tournament wins made him backgammon's first true celebrity.
Bill Robertie followed, winning the World Backgammon Championship in Monte Carlo twice (1983 and 1987) and writing several seminal books including "Modern Backgammon" and the "Backgammon for Winners" series.
The Computer Revolution
Everything changed in 1992 when IBM researcher Gerald Tesauro built TD-Gammon — a neural network that taught itself backgammon by playing 1.5 million games against itself. By 1995, TD-Gammon reached near-world-class strength and exposed errors in human expert play that had stood for decades.
Jellyfish (1994) and Snowie (1996) brought computer analysis to home players. Today, free programs like GNU Backgammon and commercial engines like XG (Extreme Gammon) play at superhuman levels. Modern champions train constantly against these engines, and the gap between elite humans and computers continues to narrow.
Today's Champions
The modern professional scene includes Masayuki Mochizuki ("Mochy") of Japan, multiple-time world champion; Matvey "Falafel" Natanzon, the Russian-American who came from the street-hustler scene to win at the highest level; and Kit Woolsey, whose theoretical writings continue to shape advanced strategy. Major tournaments like the World Backgammon Championship in Monte Carlo and the Las Vegas Open attract elite players from around the globe.
A Living Game
Few games connect the present to such deep antiquity. When you roll dice on a backgammon board today, you're playing a game that Mesopotamian kings, Roman emperors, Persian poets, and Renaissance scholars all played before you. That continuity — across 5,000 years and a hundred civilizations — is what makes backgammon truly timeless.