Tourne-Case

Tourne-case was a variant of backgammon that was popular in France in the seventeenth century.

Setup: Each player has only three checkers, which start off the board. Players play only on their own side of the board, moving their checkers from left-to-right across the board.

Object: The object of the game is for the player to move all of his checkers across the board and pile them up on his home point. The first player with all three checkers on their own home point wins the game.

To start: Each player rolls one die with the higher number goes first. That player then re-rolls to begin their first turn.

Entering: The player enters a checker into his starting table by rolling a number corresponding to an open point within that table. The player may not enter a checker onto a point that is occupied.

Movement: The roll of the dice indicates how many points/pips the player can move his checkers. The following rules apply:

A checker can only be moved to an open point unoccupied by a checker. However, more than one checker may be piled onto a player's home point, the last point in its journey across the board.

Checkers must remain in their order of entry. No checker can pass over another checker when it moves.

The numbers on the two dice constitute separate moves. If a player rolls 5 and 2, he may move one checker five spaces to an open point and another checker two spaces to an open point. He can only move one checker a total of seven spaces to an open point if the intermediate point (either two or five spaces from the starting point) is also open.

Unlike backgammon, doubles are played only once. If a player rolls 3-3, he moves one checker three pips.

If a player is unable to play all of the numbers of a roll, he must play as many as he can and any unplayable numbers are lost.