Name/Title
Modern Backgammon in a NutshellSecondary Title
Another self-published treatise on the game, written by a Greek player in Cleveland. This book’s extreme rarity is probably explained by its being circulated in the very small quantities typical of a vanity press. It is an idiosyncratic book, mixing its nutshell metaphor with the subtitle “Backgammon as a Military Conflict.” Gatsos takes Leila Hattersley’s playful martial descriptions of the fifteen checkers to a tedious extreme. Players are “Captains” of their four uniformed squads of checkers; the bar is a hospital to which “wounded men” repair when hit; the entire point of the game is to “obtain information” about the enemy position and bring it safely home; each Captain “also has in his possession a gun with two bullets” — yes, the dice. Like Georges Mabardi, Gatsos numbers the points of the board in the reverse manner to how we do it today, which he identifies as the “only correct method,” used in Europe and the Orient.
Perhaps most tantalizing is a list of backgammon variations printed on the final page to be addressed in a subsequent volume that never seems to have materialized. We can only guess how one might have played “I-Sow-He-Reaps” backgammon.
Collection seeks an original copy of this book.Other Names and Numbers
Other Numbers
Number Type
SequenceOther Number
1930_12_10Book Details
Date Published
Dec 10, 1930
