Tables was still the more common name used throughout the seventeenth century. As late as September 21, 1665, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: "I got to my Lord Bruncker's before night, and there I sat and supped with him and his mistresses ... Thence, after losing a crowne betting at Tables, we walked home".

Thirteen years later Samuel Butler mentioned backgammon in his satirical epic poem Hudibras, which may be the first use of the word in English literature.

There are a number of possible sources for the word "backgammon". For example, in Welsh bach means small, and cammaun means battle. But since in many early versions of the game players began with all the men off the board, a less interesting but more plausible source is Middle English: baec means back, gamen means game - i.e., a game in which (1) you want to go back home and back off the board again, and (2) you may be forced back (to the bar) and to start over. Or perhaps it simply came from the fact that most chessboards were marked for backgammon on the back.

18th Century Popularity in England

And certainly debates about hits were easier of settlement than disputes about tithes from Sir Roger de Coverley - who when he wished to obtain from the University a chaplain of piety and urbanity, in short a Christian minister, conditioned that he "should know something about backgammon". Sir Roger was of course Addison and Steele's fictitious country gentleman, whose exploits entertained the readers of The Spectator

And in 1735 Soame Jenyns composed the following verse:

Here you'll be ever sure to meet A hearty welcome, though no treat; A house where quiet guards the door, Nor rural wits smoke, drink, and roar; Choice books, safe horses, wholesome liquor Billiards, backgammon, and the vicar.

Another writer with a practical bent proclaimed backgammon "all allodyne to the gout, the rheumatism, the azure devils or the yellow spleen". A more snobbish and equally inaccurate fan contended that "from time immemorial, backgammon has held the foremost position among the elite of popular games. It has ever been a game for the higher classes and has never been vulgarised or defiled by uneducated people".

And Hoyle, of course, wrote a treatise on the game which first appeared in 1743, the year after his book on whist. During the nineteenth century interest in the game seems to have waned somewhat, though there are still literary references early in the century.

Sir Walter Scott, one of the fashion-setters of his time, was an enthusiastic player, and Lord Byron wrote in Don Juan: "Like a backgammon board, the place was dotted with whites and blacks".

George Frederick Pardon

Here is a particularly inspiring excerpt, in his inimitable prose:

"A Hit"    The technical terms of backgammon may teach valuable lessons. ... In the game, it is proper to "get your men to your table", and to effect it as rapidly as possible; that teaches hospitality, brisk as its own champagne.    "Cover Your Man" "Cover your man" is another maxim; that shows protection must be afforded to the helpless, clothing to him "whose looped and windowed raggedness" demands payment of such charitable imposts; 'tis, moreover, to diminish the amount of poor's-rate, by encouraging manufactures, and let political economists prescribe a better remedy. "Get home as quickly as you can"     "Get home as quickly as you can" inculcates the culture of domestic happiness: and suggests a speedy return from even the most festive scenes, in order to light up eyes that such return renders brighter than the tapers by which the loved one waits and muses. "Go back" is often said at backgammon, and should be the endeavour of the wanderer from the path of rectitude, ere the second false step has been taken.

Despite Mr. Pardon (who wisely published his book under the pseudonym Captain Rawdon Crawley), the game remained a favourite of the English upper classes, and it was played constantly in the nineteenth century in their many clubs and country houses.

United States

Lost at backgammon 7/6. Won at backgammon 7d/1/3.

Records survive from the mid-nineteenth century revealing that at least one of the Mississippi riverboat gamblers used a portable backgammon set to fleece victims on board the famed Natchez.

French Development

The typical gentleman of Louis XIII's reign was described as playing tric-trac on a chest covered with an oriental rug, on which the board rested. And in 1682 Le Mercure described the Sun King's new apartments at Versailles, in which were discovered: "A pentagonal table, a square one, a triangular one - all were used by the King and Queen to play on. All were covered with green velvet and gold embroidery and dressed with silver candlesticks".

A century later, during the era of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, specially designed tric trac tables began to appear in the homes of the French aristocracy. The tric-trac table looked like a small, flat desk; the centre was hollow and contained the game itself. On the sides, little holes were made to hold ivory or silver flags that indicate the points.

There were drawers for the pieces, the dice, and dice cups, and the top was covered with felt for playing cards on one side, and the other had a chessboard or leather surface to be used as a desk. These tables were fantastically intricate, inlaid with precious materials, and one table said to have been owned by Marie Antoinette cost 238,000 francs in gold.

Elsewhere in Europe

In Germany the French name tric trac was generally adopted. A book on ancient games published in 1892 gives the following rather dizzying account of something called German Backgammon:

The Entering division and the Home are common to both players. The Entering division must he either the right-hand near division, or the left-hand opposite division. The pieces enter by throws, and all pieces must be entered before any leave the Entering division. On throwing doublets the player, after playing those doublets, is entitled to play the doublets underneath, which are always the complement of seven. Should he forget to do so, or should be not be able to do so, his opponent says - "I play your aces", or whatever the number may be. On throwing 1, 2, the player can call for any doublets be chooses: but should he forget to do so, his opponent may say - "I play your doublets". But this must be done after throwing his dice, but not lifting up the dice-box. This is an amusing game, not merely, from the frequency of taking up, owing to the pieces all travelling in the same direction, but also from a player being permitted to play whatever his opponent cannot play; and also whatever his opponent forgets to play. The game is much longer than the ordinary backgammon, and the fluctuations of the game much greater, thus producing greater excitement.

Versions of the game are played in every European country. A so-called Russian Backgammon described in the Encyclopaedia Britannica sounds strikingly like so-called German Backgammon:

All stones are, off the board at the outset, and are entered in the same table and travel concurrently around to the same home table. Variants differ as to other rules. The first stone entered may be moved thereafter, or two men must be entered before moving. Blots may be hit at any time; usually a blot must be re-entered before any other play is legal. Doublets are used twice over, together with the doublets on the opposite faces (opposite faces of a die total seven); sometimes the opposite doublets may be used first, and sometimes the caster may roll a second time after throwing doublets. This privilege is lost if he cannot use all of his first roll, and sometimes his opponent is allowed to use what he cannot. Complementary doublets and the second roll are usually barred on the first turn.