Backgammon according to the normal movement rules. The first player to bear off all fifteen of his/her own checkers wins the game. If the opponent has not yet borne off any checkers when the game ends, the winner scores a "gammon", which counts for double stakes. If the opponent has not yet borne off any checkers and has some on the bar or in the winner's home board, the winner scores a "backgammon", which counts for triple stakes. To speed up match play and to provide an added dimension for strategy, a doubling cube is usually used. The doubling cube is
Backgammon also be an ancestor of modern-day table games like backgammon. It used tetrahedral dice. In the modern Middle East, backgammon is a common feature of coffeehouses. Race board games involving dice have a long history in Iraq, including the Royal Game of Ur in Babylon. Today the game is commonly played in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and other Arab countries. In the (modern) Arab Levant and Iraq it is called "tawle" which means table, and it is also called "shesh besh" (shesh means 6 in Aramaic and Phoenician, but derives from Phoenician). Backgammon is one of the oldest games