Hi,

Does anybody know when the starting position we use today was invented?
I know backgammon is 5000 years old, but I doubt they used the same starting position. Yet I always feel like the modern starting position is probably still a few thousand years old.

I play backgammon now for about 15 years, and the more I play this game the more I am amazed at the wonderful starting position. It's so well balanced, so interesting. If our starting position had 4 checker on the 8 point and 4 checkers on the 6 point, it would already be less interesting, less chances to slot.
This is where I am amazed again, as far as I know the idea of slotting came in the 70's or maybe 60's, but this game is thousands of years old, and they did not slot back in those days I assume, but yet they made a starting position that was perfect for slotting. Sometimes I almost think that the starting position is given to us by some extraterrestrial life.

There are much more great things that can be said about it.

Maybe I made some mistakes in this post, so correct me if I am wrong.
Anybody got more information on the history of the starting position?
I am affraid there is not much known and it always will be one of the wonders of the world.

I am pretty sure that is the case, as there is no other plausible explanation!

Backgammon isn't really 5000 years old. The comments about "backgammon has been traced back to the Kingdom of Ur" are actually references to racing-type games which date back that far, but the boards bear no resemblance to the modern backgammon game. All we can say is that the general idea of a racing board game is at least 5000 years old.

Boards that are clearly direct ancestors of backgammon (24 points, 15 checkers on each side, a bar in the middle) date back at least as far as ancient Palestine about the time of the Roman conquest, around 2000 years ago. There is speculation that the game didn't originate there but instead migrated from India or Persia, but AFAIK there's no hard evidence to back up either supposition.

We don't know the starting position of the Palestinian game, only that it used the same board and number of pieces.

The backgammon board and pieces were widely used in the Middle Ages and were the basis for many variations. The modern starting position is known to have been in use in England in the late 1600s, and in America in the 1700s. The French at this time played a different variation called Tric-Trac, where each player started with all 15 checkers on his 24-point and marched them around the board.

I have a Tric-Trac text in French from the early 1820s, which contains an appendix about backgammon, which is described as a fast-paced English game that was becoming more and more popular in France. Indeed within 30 years Tric-Trac had more or less disappeared.

Several other versions with different starting positions are still played in Greece and the Middle East. The great advantage of backgammon is that it allows for some games to be finished relatively quickly, making it a much better gambling game. The doubling cube enhances this appeal since it allows for lopsided games to be finished immediately, and the players can move right on to the next game.

Some things are surprisingly new: the modern opening roll with the thrower of the higher die going first with the dice thrown. [Pairs being rethrown.]

Previously, the winner of the opening roll (see above) threw the dice again and so could start the game with a fresh double.