The doubling cube only entered into backgammon play in the 1920s. Backgammon is the oldest recorded game played by man. The doubling cube was first used at the Knickerbocker Club in New York. Well, it breathed a new lease of life into the game. Has a name ever been put to the guy who came up with the idea?

Possible answers.

Fantastic links.

Many thanks.

Much obliged.

I think monopoly is older than backgammon.

Risk too.

I wonder if that first doubling cube was made of Ivory?


Glad to see the Backgammon forum..

The greatest analog heads up game

The doubling cube in backgammon is older than the game of Monopoly.

And Risk is barely 50 years old.

But thanks for spamming the forum.

Yeah, ancestors of backgammon are known from ancient Egypt ((-:

Backgammon in more or less its current form (24 points in 4 quadrants, 15 men on each side) dates back about 2000 years to Roman times. They called it "Tabulae". The number of dice and rules of movement were different and evolved over the years.

In the Middle Ages there were many forms of backgammon with different starting positions and requirements for winning. All were grouped under the general name "tables". The most popular variant was called tric-trac, where all 15 checkers started back on the 24-point.

The board setup for the modern game seems to have come into play in the seventeen century. Compared to tric-trac, it was much faster and more suited to gambling. It had replaced tric-trac as the dominant form of the game by about 1850.