Trictrac (also tric trac or tric-trac) is a French or Austrian board game of skill and chance for two players that is played with dice on a game board similar, but not identical, to that of backgammon (the difference being that the edges of a true trictrac board are perforated for score-marking purposes). Though its national origin is uncertain, it was "the classic tables game" of France in the way that backgammon is in the English-speaking world,Parlett (1999), p. 86. and has additionally been known to be played in Austria, Denmark, Spain, and Sweden.
Trictrac's gaming interest lies in its multiple combinations, the importance of decision-making and its comprehensive rules which have been well documented and remained stable since the early 17th century. It requires constant attention from the players whether or not it is their turn. Its vocabulary, which is very rich,In Fallavel (1776), the chapter entitled 'explanation of terms' has nearly 200 entries. frequently occurs in French literature.
The object of the game is not to get out the men as quickly as possible as in jacquet or backgammon, but to score as many points as possible. The game usually ends before all the men have been borne off, and often before any of them have.
From this point onward, in spite of the existence of numerous computer and mobile implementations, trictrac will predominantly be discussed as if it were an over-the-board game; certain social niceties and penalties simply do not make sense when playing on anything but a live board. While these things do need to be mentioned for the sake of those who do wish to play in an analogue environment, in no case does their presence or absence detract from the game itself to any degree.
Equipment
The full complement of equipment needed to play all variants of trictrac comprises:
A board (tablier or trictrac), similar to that of backgammon, but with twenty-four holes drilled in the rails (bandes) forming the longer edges of the board at the base of each of the twenty-four points (flèches = "arrows") and three more holes in each end rail of the board. The players' side rails each have twelve holes, the end rails only three. The centre bar of the board between the left and right halves is also known as the 'bridge' (pont); Thirty tablemen (dames = "ladies", tables = "tables", or bois = "wood") of which fifteen are black (noires) and fifteen white (blanches);Fiske (1905), pp. 174–184. Two dice (dés) and two dice cups (cornets); Three identical discs (bredouilles in the plural), called jetons ("tokens") of which one, the "lurch token", is called the bredouille (in the singular); Four pairs of pegs (fichets), each pair in a different colour, which progress along the twelve holes of the side rails; of these, one pair should be double-ended. (Gold, silver, black, and gold-silver will be assumed here.) Five tokens identical to the jetons but pierced with holes large enough to accommodate the fichets, called, by analogy, neckties (cravates) or ruffs (fraises). A set of five plain washers will suffice. A small flag called the banner (étendard) or, literally, pavilion (pavillon). Three boxes of European gaming chips, each box containing chips of a different colour, in three denominations each, distinguished by shape: round jetons [jetons], square markers [contrats], and fish-shaped fish [fiches].
This set of equipment represents a ceiling; for the oldest and most basic (à douze trous = "twelve-hole", l'ancien trictrac = "the old trictrac", or jeu de curé = "vicar's game") form of trictrac, some of this is not used (notably, three out of the four pairs of pegs, four out of five neckties, and the gaming chips), and for the later Austrian variation (trictrac à écrire), there is still some unused equipment.
The jetons must not be confused with the score-marking tokens also described above; the French language fails to disambiguate, leaving this to be understood in context. (Oftentimes, such jetons, marked with the logos of breweries and distilleries, are given away in hospitality establishments as promotional ephemera; their nature makes them inherently disposable in stark contrast to the durable gaming material heretofore described.)
Nonetheless, beyond the banner and the double-ended pair of pegs, there is very little in the way of equipment that is unique to trictrac, and improvisation has demonstrably been common practice since the 17th century: it is suggested in a number of the treatises that money (coins) is acceptable for the tokens and neckties,, that a rolled-up scrap of paper or bundle of silk thread makes a decent-enough "peg", and that the board be drilled with twelve holes as seen in the pictures. The pegs are shared with cribbage; the jetons with an assortment of European games (of which noteworthy are Nain Jaune, Belote, Piquet, Ombre, Mistigri, Danish Tarok, Boston and Vira); and the dice, tablemen, and board with all tables games (particularly backgammon).
The word table was the original term used in the French language to designate a man in the game._ (1715), p. 7: "The men are called indiscriminately dames or tables. The name dame became commonplace during the 17th century but that of table remained in several expressions in the game; notably, the expressions jan de deux tables and jan de six tables refer to tablemen, not halves or quadrants of the board (a subtlety sometimes missed by historical translations).
The board Tables boards are largely similar, save for a number of minor differences that speak to the games being played thereon. Because, in backgammon, verquere, and bräde (the modern descendant of verquere), pieces hit go to the bar, backgammon and bräde boards both have a deliberately wide bar. Boards for verquere and bräde, however, tend to be in a 2:1 ratio of width to length when open, and thus have extremely short points by comparison with backgammon boards (to the point that, without further inspection, one often can't tell the number of men on a point, only its parity). The more modern style of backgammon board, as popularised in the United States, also tends to come with a so-called doubling cube and have storage for men that have been borne off.
Jacquet (also known as mültezim), plakoto (also known as mahbousa), and fevga (also known as tapa) have no hitting at all, but aside from the case of France during a mid-20th century fad, these games (otherwise popular in Greece, Bulgaria, Lebanon, and Syria) are often played in rotation with backgammon, and are therefore played on backgammon boards. Boards intended only for jacquet (as were made in the tens of thousands during the aforementioned fad) tend to have a far narrower bar than do boards for backgammon and bräde.
A trictrac board is most similar to the jacquet board that it later spawned, but has an approximately 1/8" or 3/16" hole drilled in the top of the side rail at the midpoint of each triangular point for a total of twelve holes per long side, and a further three holes drilled near the centre of each end rail (one a quarter of the way down, one in the middle, and one three-quarters of the way down). This allows the playing of not only trictrac itself, but all the aforementioned games to boot (though some trictrac boards do have very slender centre bars; the bar has a significance in this game, and must be present unlike in some tables games—including jacquet—but it is not a location to which men are ever sent).
In fact, much historical trictrac literature (le Charpentier, Guiton, Lepeintre q.v.) includes sections on how to play these other games and specifically instructs players to play them "sur un trictrac" – that is, on a trictrac board. The complexity of these games relative to one another is laid bare by the fact that 87 pages of the Charpentier (as published in the anthology L'Académie des Jeux) are devoted to trictrac, while verquere (a rather complex tables game in its own right) is given 14. The advice given in the Charpentier still essentially holds: if one wishes to play all tables games, the board that comes second to none in its adaptability is that designed for trictrac.
Rules Preparation The allocation of the men and seating may be by mutual agreement or drawing lots. Once those are decided, the players place their men in three or four piles on their talon on their own side of the board. The player whose talon is to the right moves the men clockwise; the other player moves them anticlockwise. Each player places a peg (fichet) in the hole in the end rail nearest the talon. The banner (étendard) goes in the hole in the middle, between the two pegs. The three holes in the opposite end rail are not used. The three tokens are lined up against the end rail between the two talons.
Vocabulary Numbering of points
During the four centuries that trictrac has been known to be played, no system for the numbering of points has become universal. Three numbering conventions are considered particularly noteworthy:
That used by Charpentier and Guiton, numbering each player's talon where the pieces are arranged at the beginning of each relevé (the space between occurrences of the men being picked up and reset to start—akin to a game in tennis) as T or 0, then 1 to 11; That used by Malfilâtre, numbering each player's talon as 1, then 2 to 12; That introduced by Magriel, numbering the current player's talon as 1, then 2 to 12, and progressing boustrophedonically down the other side of the board, ending at the opponent's talon, which is numbered 24. See Backgammon notation.
Confusion between the former and the two latter is liable to introduce off-by-one errors; it is therefore crucial to note that this article uses Guiton's numbering. Absolute point names (q.v.) eliminate ambiguity entirely: the coin de repos is always the coin de repos, irrespective of whether it is numbered "Black's 11", "Black's 12", or "the 12-point".
Other notations have been devised by various authors; their use is now to be regarded as obsolete. Lepeintre used a system almost identical to Magriel's, save that points are lettered from A to Y (omitting W) rather than numbered; Soumille used a similar system, but with only the 23 letters of the Latin alphabet (counting I and J, as well as U and V, as one letter each, and omitting W), to which he appended ampersand.
Absolute naming of points Certain points have been given names:
point T: talon (talon); point 5: businessman's corner (coin bourgeois, Bürgerwinkel in German); point 6: sometimes also called businessman's corner;Jollivet (1656), p. 37, gives the name "businessman's corner" to point no. 6. point 7: Devil's corner (coin du Diable); point 10: schoolboy's point (case de l'écolier), Travanet's point, or "the Travanet" (sometimes spelled Travanais); point 11: rest corner, grand corner, or "the corner" (coin de repos, grand coin, or coin). Points 9, 10, and 11 are together known as jacket, waistcoat, and trousers (habit, veste, et culotte).
Foregame and aftergame The men travel a circuit (marche), first along the player's side of the board from the talon to the rest corner, then along the opponent's, or adverse, side from the adverse rest corner to the adverse talon, before being borne off the board. Each half of the route has a name:
Foregame (jeu ordinaire): the movement of men along the home side of the board from the talon to the rest corner; Aftergame (jeu de retour): the movement of men along the adverse side of the board from the adverse rest corner to the adverse talon. As soon as a player moves a man onto the opponent's half of the board, that man is said to have progressed to the aftergame (passer au retour).Levy, David (2007). Rules for the Game of Tritrac at booksongaming.com. Retrieved 30 October 2021. As in backgammon and opposite to jacquet, play is contrariwise.
Blots, full points, and vulnerability