J. Van Cleft Cooper, a crossword compiler of some note, will be a new name for most backgammon scholars as he did not author a book on backgammon, but he did publish this 6-part introduction to the game. It was carried in various newspapers starting in early October in American city papers as far flung as the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Of particular interest is the 4th installment, which provides a quite detailed account of the use of matches for scoring. In Van Cleft’s account, each match represents one point . . . but he quickly confuses himself miscounting matches and doubles, in the process showing why people must have been relieved when the doubling cube came along.
The six articles compiled in the PDF file were drawn from various papers in order to use the best quality scans for each piece, so the numbering scheme of the sections indicated in the columns themselves is inconsistent as some papers split or combined material in different ways.
