Playing Nard in Baku

One of the best ways to interact with locals in any country is to learn the national games. These activities transcend the limitations of age and language. You can play with anybody regardless of whether your generation fought in the Great War or the World of Warcraft or whether you share a common language. If you are travelling in Azerbaijan, the game you must learn is nard. Once you leave your hotel Baku seems to be filled with nard games. Men play in almost every cafe and every park bench. Everywhere you can hear the roll of dice and clicking of the nard pieces moving about the board.

Nard is very similar to backgammon, so pick up a board before you travel and learn the basic rules. However, while the board looks the same and the concepts are similar, the set up and rules of nard are different. For example, although each player starts with fifteen pieces (just as in backgammon), in nard a player’s pieces are all on the point furthest to the right of the far side of the board. Thus, the player’s pieces are all in one place diagonal to those of his opponent. Each player moves his pieces in the same direction, counterclockwise, around the board. This too is different than in backgammon.

Like in backgammon, the objective is to move all your pieces around the board and then remove them. To begin, the first player rolls the dice. The number rolled is how many points the player is allowed to move his or her pieces. The number on each dice is a separate move and doubles are played twice. The pieces may be moved only to an open point, not one that has any of your opponent’s pieces on it. The largest difference between nard and normal backgammon is that one piece can control a point. It is that simple.

Many of the hotels in Baku have their own cafes and it is very likely there will be a board you can borrow, if there is not already a game in progress. Good luck.