Tavli: How Greece Plays Backgammon

Walk into almost any kafeneio in Greece in the late afternoon and you will hear it before you see it: the rattle of dice in a wooden board, the sharp click of checkers slapped down on the points, a running commentary that is half strategy and half teasing. This is tavli, the Greek name for backgammon, and it is not quite the game most Canadians learned from the lid of a box.

Tavli is really three games played in rotation on the same board: portes, plakoto and fevga. A match moves through them in turn, usually to five or seven points, and a player who is strong at one but weak at another is found out quickly. That variety is what keeps a board open on the table for an entire evening.

A game passed across the table

Games that race checkers around a board to the roll of dice are among the oldest games people play, and the eastern Mediterranean has played them for a very long time. The word tavli itself goes back to the Latin tabula, the board, which lent its name to a whole family of table games across Europe. The Greek form settled into its three-game pattern over generations of café play, handed down not through rulebooks but from grandfather to grandchild across a folding board.

That is also how Manopoulos began. In 1968 Costas Manopoulos watched his father, George, come home after long working days and unwind over backgammon with friends. The idea that a game could take the stress of the day away and bring people together stayed with him, and within a few years he was making chess and backgammon sets of his own. The house line, Handcrafted in Greece since 1970, is in a sense a line about tavli.

Portes: the familiar one

Portes, which means doors, is the closest of the three to international backgammon. Each player has 15 checkers in the familiar starting position, and the two sides move in opposite directions around the 24 points. A single checker standing alone on a point is exposed: if the opponent lands on it, it is hit and must enter again from the start. Two or more checkers make a point safe, and a row of made points becomes a wall, a set of closed doors, that the other side cannot pass.

The main difference from the tournament game is what is left out. Greek players rarely bother with the doubling cube, so a game is simply won or lost, with a double score when the loser has not yet borne off a single checker. Without the cube, the play is quicker and the talk is louder.

Plakoto: the pin

Plakoto changes the mood completely. Both players start with all 15 checkers stacked on one point in the opponent’s home corner and bring them all the way around the board. There is no hitting. Instead, a checker that lands on a lone opposing checker pins it where it stands, and the pinned checker cannot move until the one on top of it leaves.

Pins are the whole game. A well-timed pin can freeze an opponent’s progress for many turns, and a pin held deep in your own home board can be crushing. The most dangerous moment comes early: if the last checker on a player’s starting point is pinned there, it is usually enough to decide the game. Experienced players guard that checker, which Greeks call the mother, with real care.

Fevga: the race and the block

Fevga, from the Greek verb for running away, is the strangest of the three to a newcomer. Each player again starts with 15 checkers on a single point, but the two stacks sit in opposite corners and both sides travel in the same direction around the board. There is no hitting and no pinning. A single checker is enough to hold a point, and no opposing checker may land there.

So fevga becomes a game of blocking. Each player tries to build a run of held points in front of the other’s advancing checkers, and the opening moves are slow and careful, because a checker sent ahead too early can end up stranded and useless. It rewards patience more than luck, which is why it is often thought of as the hardest of the three.

The board that holds all three

Tavli asks a lot of a board. It is opened and closed thousands of times, carried from kitchen to terrace, and played with a force that would worry a chess set. A traditional Greek board folds shut on itself, so the checkers and dice travel inside it, and it is built to take years of slapped checkers.

The Manopoulos Wenge Backgammon Replica is exactly this kind of board. Its case is finished in wenge replica veneer, the playing field is wenge with walnut and oak points, and it closes on brass-finish hinges and a clasp. It is cut, veneered and finished by hand in the Manopoulos workshop in Thebes, and the playing field is printed and sealed for a smooth, durable surface. Inside are 30 wooden checkers and two dice; the 48 × 26 cm and 38 × 20 cm boards also come with a pair of dice cups.

Size is a question of where you play. The 48 × 26 cm board is the one for a dining table and a long evening. The 38 × 20 cm is a comfortable middle. The 30 × 17 cm and 20 × 12 cm boards are small enough for a bag, a cottage shelf or the deck of a boat. For more on wood, size and feel, the buying guide on backgammon sets in this journal goes into detail.

How to play tavli at home

• Agree on the match. Five points for a quick evening, seven for a longer one.
• Rotate the games. Play portes, then plakoto, then fevga, and start again.
• Count the double wins. A game won before the loser has borne off any checkers scores two.
• Keep it moving. Tavli is played briskly. Long pauses are for chess.

Then add the things that belong around a board: a small cup of coffee in the afternoon, perhaps a glass of something and a good cigar on the terrace later, and an opponent who talks as much as they play. The game will do the rest.

El Laguito Cigars carries the Manopoulos range and supplies it anywhere in Canada. Whether you learned tavli on a Greek island or are about to learn it now, a proper board is where it starts.