The Narde (or Fevga) and the Moultezim game are two similar games. They are preferred over the other variants because they are quick and they have simple rules. Don’t be naive, however, if you are not careful enough, you could easily turn the game into an one player game, and give your opponent two points (double).
Objective
As with all backgammon variants, the purpose of these games is firstly to move the checkers to the inner table (or inner board), and then to bear them off faster than your opponent. We move them according to the narde rules, which states that you can move your checkers to open or friendly occupied spaces. You are not allowed to hit your opponent’s checkers or to trap them. There are few more rules regarding the movement of the first checker and about how many spaces you can occupy in your base area, but these rules are merely to slow down the game rather than to dictate your strategy.
Tips
One may claim that these game do not require any strategy, and the winner will always be the luckiest person. How wrong this statement is. Consider for example the case of rolling 6 – 6 at the beginning of the game, what a waste!
According to the article on Possible Outcomes of Rolling Two Dice, we want to a have a checker every 4 or 3 spaces, so that can we freely progress our checkers. If we manage to have 6 checkers in a row (block), we have a high chance of winning the game. Of course this greatly depends on where we have these checkers. Thus, if we manage to put them in the opponent’s base area, then we can safely claim that this game would turn into a one player game.
At the beginning of the game we want to place a checker in the inner table, and a checker in the opponent’s base area. By doing that we guarantee that we can move checkers to the inner table, and hence bear them off faster than our opponent.
We then focus on our base area, and we want to make sure that we will not be blocked by our opponent. If the conditions permit, we keep adding more checkers in the opponent’s base area (or inner table), striving to either block the opponent or give him/her a hard time to move his/her checkers.
Enjoy the game!