Same board, same 15 checkers, same goal. Only three things really differ: the doubling cube, the opening roll, and how a big win is scored.
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Setup, movement, hitting, and bearing off are identical. If you play one, you already play the other.
| Rule | Backgammon (Western) | Tavla (Turkish) |
|---|---|---|
| Board & setup | 24 points, 15 checkers each, standard starting position | Identical board and starting position |
| Opening roll | One die each; higher number goes first and plays both dice | One die each; the higher roller re-rolls both dice, so doubles can open. In later games the previous winner simply starts |
| Hitting & bar | Land on a lone checker (blot) and it goes to the bar | Identical |
| Bearing off | Exact number, or higher if no checker sits further back | Identical; a few house rules require exact numbers only |
| Doubling cube | Yes — core to competitive play since the 1920s | No in traditional tavla, including official tournaments; used in Turkey's modern (international-rules) events |
| Double win | Gammon — 2× stakes | Mars — 2× stakes |
| Triple win | Backgammon — 3× stakes | None in traditional tavla — a mars is the maximum. Modern cube tavla adds katmerli mars at 3× |
| Match format | First to N points, with the Crawford rule | Usually a run of individual games |
The cube was invented in 1920s New York. Either player can offer to double the stakes mid-game; the opponent takes the cube and plays on, or drops and concedes at the current stakes. It adds the one part of backgammon with no dice in it at all, and it's reckoned to be worth 15–20% of a strong player's edge.
Traditional tavla plays without it, at fixed stakes, and official traditional tournaments in Turkey are still cubeless. That also means no graceful way to concede a lost game — you play it to the end. Turkey also has a modern tavla scene that plays full international rules, cube included. If you want one thing to study, make it cube strategy: the 25% take point and Woolsey's Law.
Western backgammon has each player roll one die. Higher number goes first and plays both dice, so a 5 against a 3 opens with 5-3. Ties re-roll, and doubles can never open a game.
Tavla starts the same way, but the winner of the one-die roll then picks up both dice and rolls again for the actual opening move. Doubles can open, which changes the theory a lot — double-3s make the 5-point and the 3-point at once. In the following games there is no roll-off at all: whoever won the last game starts. International play and this site use the one-die-each rule.
Play from the starting positionWin before your opponent bears off a single checker and it's a gammon in English, a mars in Turkish, worth 2×. Backgammon goes one further: win while they still have a checker on the bar or in your home board and it's a backgammon, worth 3×. Traditional tavla stops at mars — a game is worth 1 or 2, never 3. Modern cube tavla in Turkey adopts the triple win under the name katmerli mars.
One thing to settle before a casual tavla game: some house rules require the exact number to bear off each checker, with no overshooting. Standard tavla and backgammon both allow it.
Play a bear-off raceThe game is at least 5,000 years old, and every region that picked it up gave it a name: tavla from the Latin tabula ("board"), tavli in Greece, takhte nard in Iran, nardi in Armenia. Several of those regions also play genuinely different games on the same board:
The Greek name for standard backgammon. Same rules, cube included in tournaments. Played as part of a tavli set with plakoto and fevga.
All 15 checkers start on the 24-point. You don't hit lone checkers, you trap them: land on one and it can't move until you leave. No bar at all.
Both players move the same direction and nobody hits anybody. You win by blockading. Called moultezim in Turkish.
The Caucasus and Central Asian cousin of fevga: no hitting, same direction of travel. You may never block all six of your home points, so the opponent always has a way in.
A US military barracks favourite. Roll 1-2 and you play it, then pick any doubles you like, then roll again. Far more volatile than the standard game.
Nack Ballard's variant. One checker from the midpoint and one from the 6-point start on the opponent's 2-point instead, so you have four back checkers rather than two: longer games, more back-game potential, and fewer pure races.