The Prisoner Game
When I was a kid I used to play “backgammon” at a tiny restaurant in my neighborhood - the proprietor was a funny, nice guy who taught me and my oldest brother to play, as well as teaching me to fry falafel and run a cash register. He was one of those blessedly un-creepy adults who can make a big difference in a troubled kid’s life. So I’ve always had a strong emotional tie to “backgammon” as well as liking to play it.
The problem is, every time I’ve tried playing backgammon as an adult, it’s been this weird, confusing game, that isn’t fun and doesn’t make sense. It’s made me sad because I remember liking it so much when I was young.
I recently discovered the explanation, which is that we were actually playing Mahbuse (محبوسة - “prisoner”). Which is an awesome, fun game, popular in Lebanon, where my restaurant-proprietor friend was from, and throughout the Middle East (with various different names).
(Not me and not my restaurant-proprietor friend, although the guy on the left looks a bit like him)
It’s vaguely similar to backgammon, but with no stakes, all the pieces start in the same position, and “caught” pieces are pinned, not sent back to start. So it avoids the despair of having a piece knocked back to the very beginning over and over, while allowing you to gleefully stack “guard” pieces onto your opponent’s “prisoner” pieces, while laughing evilly and rubbing your hands together. And for them to do the same to you. I bought a board and taught my husband, son, and housemate how to play, and it is just as much fun as I remembered.
If you’re interested in playing, you just need a board - the high-walled “Turkish” style are more fun if you like to slam pieces into corners and make loud clacking noises (so much dopamine!), but any type will do. (Or you can get an electronic version, for Android phones anyway. I haven’t found a nice one for IOS.) You can read the rules at mahbuse dot com.