I learned how to play backgammon (or ‘tavli’ in Greek, or ‘taouli’ in Arabic) two years ago with a Kurdish-Iranian friend in Athens. I usually lost, but at least he had the patience to teach me how to play. It’s a great game, probably 80% luck and 20% skill, and is supposedly the oldest recorded board game in history.

The main reason I enjoy backgammon is not really for the game itself; rather, it’s the conversation that the game spurs. Many men find it difficult to talk about what’s going on in their lives, or certain events might be too traumatic to talk about directly. So the backgammon game becomes an allegory for life, allowing one to speak about weighty issues with a sense of detachment.

I should probably explain. The other day, I brought my backgammon board to the St. Rollox drop-n centre. I started playing a game with an Iraqi man, ‘Y’, who has been coming to the drop-in for a number of years. Initially, he started talking about general observations about life through backgammon, “you don’t know what numbers the dice will give you in the future: you can get good or bad rolls, it’s something you can’t control. But you’re responsible the moves you make with the numbers you get. It is better to play a smart move with a bad roll than to play stupid with a good roll!” He also talked about the necessity to take calculated risks, and that if you refuse to take any risk, then you will inevitably lose the game.

But the topics soon became weightier. When one of my pieces was captured, Y proceeded to tell me a story about being captured. He then launched into a harrowing story about his thirteen year imprisonment in Iraq, simply on the basis of his religion and ethnicity. Y seems to be a misunderstood character, many people not fully ‘getting’ his over-the-top and sarcastic sense of humour. Judging by what he has been through, this is probably just a way of dealing with the difficulty of his situation and loneliness.

I probably would’ve learned this eventually, but somehow backgammon becomes a catalyst for sharing and conversation. I lost the game 5 – 1, but that didn’t really matter.

- Paul