Tablan

Tablan Opening Position

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A Tablan board, twelve each of black and white counters, and four half-cylinder binary dice are required for play. The dice are traditionally painted on the rounded sides.

History

This game originates from India and is still played in some villages in Mysore, southwestern India. It bears some resemblance to Backgammon and Tâb and is likely related to one or both of these games. Its first known description in English was by games historian R. C. Bell.

Objective

The game ends when one player has transferred all of their counters to the opponent's home row. The winner is then determined to be the player who has the most remaining counters on the board. If equal, the player that has completed moving all counters to the opponent's home row first is winner.

Play

Each player commences with twelve counters arranged as above. Alternate turns entail a throw of the dice to determine how far to move one of your own counters.

A throw of one plain side up is required for any counter to start movement. Although a throw of one plain side up allows the starting counter to move ahead two steps, it may also be used to move two counters ahead one step each. Likewise, the equivalent steps from a throw of four or zero plain sides up may also be split in half for two different counters. For example, a player that has cast zero plain sides up may move one counter forward six steps and another counter forward six steps. On a player's turn, they cast the dice, move the equivalent steps and then cast the dice again and move the equivalent steps and so on until they throw two or three flat sides up which do not grant movement. Then the turn is over and the dice are passed to the next player. Any legal move that can be made must be taken.

With the opening position shown above, white counters begin moving left to right, black counters begin right to left and all continue in boustrophedon movement throughout the board. Therefore, counters are moving parallel to one another rather than contrary or head to head.

When a counter lands upon an opposing counter by exact throw, the counter that previously occupied the cell is captured by replacement and removed from the board for the rest of the game.

When a counter lands on any square on the enemy’s back row it is immobilized and does not move again during the game. Also, it can no longer be captured. There is no stacking or doubling up of counters.

Direction of movement for counters around the Tablan board. Black's movement is shown in black arrows and white's movement is shown in white arrows.