Eureika Backgammon Variant
The Eureika Backgammon variant, taught to Middle Eastern children due to its simplicity, is based on sheer luck. The idea behind Eureika is to those that are new to the game of Backgammon acquainted with the Backgammon board.
How does Eureika differ from Backgammon?
- The game begins with every one of the checkers in their respective home boards.
- The player that wins the opening roll gets to roll the dice again for his initial turn in this Backgammon variant.
- Eureika is based solely on bearing off instead of the movement of checkers as in regular Backgammon.
In Eureika, every player places 3 checkers on points 1, 2, and 3, and 2 checkers on points 4, 5, and 6. To begin playing, each participant rolls a single die and the one who rolls the higher number gets to play first. Next, the winner rolls both of the dice once more to begin his initial turn. Afterwards, the players start rolling the dice and bearing off checkers in accordance with the points that correspond to the numbers that come up when they roll the dice. In contrast to regular Backgammon, in Eureika there is no frontward movement. The winner of this Backgammon variant is the first participant to bear off every one of his checkers.
David Carnegy - Managing Editor
