Tavli (Greek: Τάβλι), sometimes called Greek Backgammon in English, is the most popular way of playing

tables game Tables games are a class of board game that includes backgammon and which are played on a tables board, typically with two rows of 12 vertical markings called points. Players roll dice to determine the movement of pieces. Tables games are among ...

s (or 'backgammon games') in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

and is their national board game.''All you need to know about Tavli, Greece's national board game''
at greekcitytimes.com. Retrieved 28 September 2022. Tavli is a

compendium game The following is a glossary of terms used in card games. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon slang terms. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific (e.g. specific to Bridge, Hearts, Poker or Rummy), ...

for two players which comprises three different variants played in succession: Portes,

Plakoto Plakoto (Πλακωτό) is a tables game for two players that is popular in Greece. The object is for the player to bring all 15 pieces around to his or her own home board and then bear them off. The player who bears off all 15 pieces first ...

and

Fevga Fevga is a popular Greek tables game for two players. It is usually played as one of three different games in succession – the others being Portes and Plakoto – in social gatherings or coffee shops. When played in this way, it is known as Tavl ...

. These are played in a cycle until one player reaches the target score - usually five or seven points.Papahristou (2015), pp. 33–34.

Description

Tables game Tables games are a class of board game that includes backgammon and which are played on a tables board, typically with two rows of 12 vertical markings called points. Players roll dice to determine the movement of pieces. Tables games are among ...

s are an ancient family of

race games Race game is a large category of board games, in which the object is to be the first to move all one's pieces to the end of a track. This is both the earliest type of board game known, with implements and representations dating back to at least t ...

, the best known modern example of which is

Backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...

. However, in Greece the most popular form of tables is Tavli, a word which is the equivalent of "tables games". Hence, this is not a single game, but a trio of tables games played to different rules and tactics. These are Portes, Plakoto and Fevga and they are played in that order until a player reaches the agreed target score. The aim in each game is to be the first player to bear off all 15

men A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chrom ...

pieces Piece or Pieces (not to be confused with peace) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Piece (chess), pieces deployed on a chessboard for playing the game of chess * ''Pieces'' (video game), a 1994 puzzle game for the Super NES * P ...

Portes

Portes is the game that resembles Backgammon most closely. It is a

hitting game The following is a glossary of terms used in tables games, essentially games played on a Backgammon-type board. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific (e.g. specific to a single game like Backgammon or Acey-deucey), but applicable to ...

in which the players may

hit Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...

enemy blots off the board.Papahristou & Refanidis (2013), pp. 2–3. The starting layout and rules are as for Backgammon except that:''Portes''
at bkgm.com. Retrieved 28 September 2022. * The player who leads re-rolls both

dice Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing g ...

to start the game. Thus a

doublet Doublet is a word derived from the Latin ''duplus'', "twofold, twice as much",