By Valentin Updated rules variants tavli
Fevga is the third game of Greek tavli and the Greek cousin of long nardy: both sides start from a single corner point and race in the same direction, there is no hitting, and one checker is enough to hold a point. Before you may move a second checker, your first one has to travel past the opponent's starting point.
Orion plays the international rules, the hitting game the Greeks call portes, and fevga is not a mode in the app. This page explains fevga for anyone sitting down to a full tavli match, where it follows portes and plakoto in the rotation.
Every Orion guide to the international game is listed on the Learn page.
Greek readers will find the same game, written in Greek from the first line, in our fevga guide in Greek.
If you already know Russian long nardy, most of what follows will be familiar, and the rule differences between all the regional games are laid out in our tour of backgammon variants.
How is the fevga board set up?
Each player stacks all fifteen checkers on one point: the rightmost point of the far side of the board, as seen from that player's seat. The two stacks therefore sit in diagonally opposite corners. Both players then move anticlockwise, round the whole board, into the quarter that lies just before their own starting point, and take their checkers off from there.
Each player rolls one die and the higher number starts by rolling both dice. After the first game of a match, the winner of the previous game goes first.
What is the first-checker rule in fevga?
At the start you may move only one checker. It has to travel the length of your starting quarter and the next, and get past the point where your opponent's stack began, before any other checker may leave your starting point. Until then every roll goes to that one runner.
The rule exists to stop both players from flooding their own starting quarter with blocks in the first few rolls. It also means the opening of fevga is a footrace, and a big early double for one runner can matter a great deal.
Is there hitting in fevga?
No, and unlike the plakoto rules there is no pinning either. A single checker owns its point, and the opponent can never land on a point that holds even one of your checkers. Contact in fevga is entirely about blocking: occupying the points the other player needs, at the moment they need them.
Moves otherwise follow the usual pattern. Each die is a separate move, one checker can use both if the point in between is open, doubles are played four times, and you must play the whole roll if you can. If only one number can be played, it must be the higher one when possible.
Can you block the whole board in fevga?
No. Six points in a row would stop every checker behind them, and fevga does not let you lock the opponent in completely. If your wall leaves the other player with no way forward at all, you have to open it. Exactly where a six-point wall may stand, and when it must be broken, is worded differently from one region to the next, so agree on it before the match begins.
How do you bear off and score in fevga?
Once all fifteen checkers are in your home quarter you start taking them off: a die removes a checker from the matching point, a higher number must be played inside the home board if there is a checker on a higher point, and otherwise it removes the checker from the highest occupied point.
The first player to bear off all fifteen wins one point, or two if the loser has not borne off any checker. There is no cube, and in a Greek tavli match these points are added to those from portes and plakoto.
How is fevga different from long nardy?
They are close relatives with different house rules. Long nardy lets only one checker leave the head per turn for the whole game, with an exception for certain doubles on the first roll. Fevga instead insists that one runner gets past the opponent's start before anyone else moves, and after that you may bring checkers out as fast as you like. Both forbid shutting the opponent in completely, and both score one point for a normal win and two for a win before the loser has borne off.
What wins fevga games?
- Take the points in front of the opponent's runner. Every point you hold in their path costs them numbers on every roll.
- Do not crowd your own starting quarter. Checkers stacked near home early have nothing useful left to do later.
- Keep spare moves. In a no-contact game the player who runs out of safe moves first has to break a block, and that is usually where fevga is lost.
- Count the race once the blocks are gone. When nothing can be blocked any more, the pip count decides it.
Can I play fevga in Orion?
No. Orion plays one game, international backgammon, which is portes with the doubling cube. Fevga, plakoto and long nardy are explained here as part of the family, not as modes in the app.
Practise portes in a real match: Orion is free on iPhone and Android, and every roll can be checked at orion.arthea.ai/verify.