Todas Tablas was a Spanish
tables game for two players that is recorded as early as 1283 by King
Alfonso X of
Castile. It is thought to be ancestral to
Backgammon through its English equivalent
Irish, as well as the French game, Toutes Tables.[1]
History
The earliest rules for Todas Tablas were published by King
Alfonso X of Leon and Castile in 1283 in his renowned work, El Libro de los Juegos ("The Book of Games"). It is almost certainly the game generally known as "Tables" in the
Middle Ages[2] and it appears ancestral or equivalent to both the Anglo-Scottish game of
Irish as well as the once-popular French game of Toutes-Tables.[1]
Name
The name is variously translated as "All Tables,[3] "All the Tables"[4] or "All Tablemen"[5] The literature is split over whether this refers to the pieces being divided among all four "tables" i.e.
quadrants of the
tables board[a] or simply that all the '
tablemen' are in play.[b][c]
Equipment
The game requires a standard
tables board, 15 pieces per player in different colours and two dice. No dice cups are specified by Alfonso.<ref name=Alfonso>Alfonso (1283), p
^The confusion no doubt arises from the fact that tablas looks like "tables" but in fact is the Spanish word for "tablemen" or the pieces used to play the game.
Alfonso X (1283). Libros de acedrex dados e tablas. Manuscript T.I.6. Biblioteca Real del Monasterio de El Escorial.
Bell, R.C. (1979).
*
Willughby, Francis (2003). Forgeng, Jeff; Johnston, Dorothy; Cram, David (eds.). Francis Willughby's Book of Games. Farnham: Ashgate.
ISBN1 85928 460 4. (Critical edition of Willughby's volume containing descriptions of games and pastimes, c.1660-1672. Manuscript in the Middleton collection, University of Nottingham; document reference Mi LM 14)
Macho, José María Arribas, Alejandro Almazán Llorente, Beatriz Mañas Ramírez and Antonio Félix Vallejos Izquierdo (2012). Historia de la Probabilidad Y la Estadística Vi. Madrid: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia.
ISBN9788436263633