Backgammon (7)

7th History of Backgammon:
Edmond Hoyle and the modern Backgammon

7. Catch Edmond Hoyle's Attention: Hoyle died in 1769, long before most of the games played today were invented. He wrote books on just five games in his lifetime, so the odds are against most games making this connection. Happily for Backgammon, Hoyle was not only a devotee of the game, he also had many ideas about how it should be played. Edmond Hoyle, in fact, turned out to be the Alexander Cartwright of Backgammon. Just as Cartwright in the 1840s codified the laws of baseball, Hoyle in 1746 did the same for Backgammon in his first book of games. Most of Hoyle's rules of play are still in force (as are most of Cartwright's).


The modern game began with Hoyle, who had developed considerable clout in the game world by 1746. When he put together the hodge-podge of rules governing the game and decreed, among other things, that doublets should be played twice and that the scoring should include such subdivisions as backgammon, gammon, and hits, people listened. And played.

Next: Pump Up the Volume with the Americans (This will be the last post regarding about some history of Backgammon.)