By Valentin Updated rules variants tavla
Tavla is the Turkish name for backgammon, and the game on a Turkish board is the same game: fifteen checkers each, the same starting position, the same moves and the same hitting. What changes is custom: a casual game is usually played without a cube to double the stakes, a mars (a gammon) counts double, and the rolls are called out by their old Persian names, such as şeş beş for 6-5.
Orion plays the international rules, which are tavla with the doubling cube and match scoring on top, so everything on this page carries straight over to the app. Playing without the cube is not a separate mode in Orion; in Türkiye the app is simply listed as Orion Tavla.
If you read Turkish, the same rules written in Turkish from the first line are in our guide in Turkish.
Every Orion guide in English, from the setup to the cube, is listed on the Learn page.
Is tavla the same as backgammon?
On the board, yes. Each player has fifteen pul (checkers) on twenty four hane (points), set out two, five, three and five exactly as in the international game. You move in opposite directions, a lone checker can be hit, a hit checker has to come back in through the opponent's home board, and the first player to take all fifteen checkers off wins.
The name is older than the modern rulebook. It goes back to the Latin tabula, the same root as tavli in Greek, and in Turkish it names the board, the game and the evening you spend over it. The family of local names is a story of its own, and the real rule differences between regions are collected in our tour of backgammon variants.
What are the Turkish words used at the tavla table?
A dozen words carry a whole game. You will hear these in any kahvehane:
- Pul: a checker. Each side has fifteen.
- Hane: a point, one of the twenty four triangles.
- Kapı: a gate, meaning a point you hold with two or more checkers. The opponent cannot land there.
- Kırmak: to hit a lone checker. The checker that was hit is a kırık pul and waits on the çıta, the bar in the middle of the board.
- İç saha: your home board, the six points you bear off from.
- Toplamak: to bear off, literally to gather your checkers in.
- Mars: a gammon, a win in which the loser has not borne off a single checker.
How are the dice rolls named in tavla?
Turkish players call the rolls by Persian numbers: yek for one, dü for two, se for three, cihar for four, penç for five and şeş for six. Doubles have names of their own, and players often call the roll out loud as they move.
- Hep yek: 1-1.
- Dubara: 2-2.
- Dü se: 3-3.
- Dört cihar: 4-4.
- Dü beş: 5-5.
- Düşeş: 6-6, the roll everyone hopes for.
- Şeş beş: 6-5, the roll that gave the game its everyday name in Israel, shesh besh.
Spellings vary from city to city and from one written list to the next, and mixed rolls have names too, such as se yek for 3-1. Nobody will mark you down for saying three one.
How does a tavla game start?
Each player throws one die and the higher number moves first. Here custom splits. In traditional tavla the winner of that throw usually picks up both dice and rolls again for the first move, which means the very first move can be a double. Under the international rules the two dice already on the table are the first roll, so the opening move is never a double. Agree on which one you are playing before the first throw.
How is tavla scored?
A normal win is one point. A mars, where you take off all fifteen checkers before the opponent has taken off even one, is two points. Some tables also count a triple when the loser still has a checker on the çıta or in the winner's home board, the backgammon of the international rules, and many tables do not. Ask first.
Serious tavla is played as a match rather than a single game, because a single game leaves too much to the dice. A target of five is the classic, though whether that means five points or the best of five games depends on the table. With a mars worth two, a match to five can end in three games.
Why do tavla players skip the doubling cube?
Tradition, mostly. The cube arrived in New York clubs in the 1920s, long after tavla was settled in Turkish cafés, and casual play never adopted it. Without the cube a game is always worth one or two points and nobody has to decide whether to accept a double, which keeps the table fast and sociable.
The price is depth. The cube is where much of modern backgammon skill lives, because it makes you price your position rather than just play it. If you grew up on tavla, the cube is the one new idea you need to play the international game well.
How is tavla different from Greek tavli and Russian nardy?
Turkish tavla is the hitting game. Greek tavli is a set of three games played in turn, portes, plakoto and fevga, and only the first of them is tavla under another name. Russia and the Caucasus mostly play long nardy, a race in one direction with no hitting at all, which shares the board and nothing else.
Can I play tavla in Orion?
Yes, in the form most of the world plays it: the international rules, with the cube and gammons. The checkers, the board, the moves and the hitting are exactly what you know from a Turkish table. What Orion does not offer is a cube-free tavla mode or a different scoring table. What a tavla player will notice at Orion's tables, point by point, is on our page about how to play tavla online.
Practise it in a real match: Orion is free on iPhone and Android, and every roll can be checked at orion.arthea.ai/verify.