Here in Bulgaria, we are playing traditionally 3 different games: Regular Tabla, Gyulbara and Tapa.
Regular Tabla is basically Cubeless Backgammon, where the winner can win 1 or 2 points. The strategy is mostly similar to backgammon, but often there is a solid difference when the player can plan the whole game until the end and the cube is not making the decision „now or never“.
Gyulbara is a contactless game, which is extremely interesting and highly unpredictable until the last roll, because when rolling a double, the player has to play all higher doubles as well. For example, if rolling 11, the players is playing at the same move 11, 22, 33, 44, 55 and 66, in that order. The number of possible combinations in that case is countless. In the begginning of the game all checkers start from 24-point.
Tapa is by far the most technical cubeless game. All checkers are placed on the 24-point at the start of the game. The opponent’s checkers can pin each other, and with 360 pips to go, it does require a lot of calculations, in order the player to be able to know when to risk and when to play safe, when to attack and when to counter attack. Unless the game gets into a very lucky sequence, the timing is the most important factor.
At our tournaments, the match lenght is always 7 points. We are playing either Round Robin format or Double Elimination format.
2nd of June 2002 is the day when the first official weekly traditional mixed tabla tournament was organised by "Slavia Backgammon Club". 4 players did participate and the name of the first winner was Nikolay Prokopiev. Ever since, we have organised over 600 weekly live tournaments and 22 annual championships. 20 times the champion was „Slavia Backgammon Club“ player. The record holder is Bogidar Iliev, who has won 18 championships titles.
ANNUAL CHAMPIONSHIP TITLES
1. Bogidar Iliev - SLAVIA (Sofia) - 18
2. Georgi Anastasov - LEVSKI (Sofia) - 1
3. Slavi Kolev - CSKA (Sofia) - 1
4. Boris Marinov - SLAVIA (Sofia) - 1
5. Rosen Stoyanov - ETAR (V. Tarnovo) - 1
*number of annual championship titles
ALL TIME TOP 10
1. Bogidar Iliev - SLAVIA (Sofia) - 183
2. Jordan Kirchev - CSKA (Sofia) - 55
3. Daniel Zahariev - LEVSKI (Sofia) - 44
4. Slavi Kolev - CSKA (Sofia) - 29
5. Rosen Stoyanov - ETAR (V. Tarnovo) - 25
6. Boris Marinov - SLAVIA (Sofia) - 24
7. Violeta Dimitrova - SLAVIA (Sofia) - 21
8. Julian Tuleshkov - CSKA (Sofia) - 19
9. Joro Gruev - CSKA (Sofia) - 16
10. Konstantin Chomakov - SLAVIA (Sofia) - 14
*number of weekly tournament wins
TEAM SUPPORT RECORDS
1. SLAVIA (Sofia) - 277
2. CSKA (Sofia) - 196
3. LEVSKI (Sofia) - 97
4. ETAR (V.Tarnovo) - 25
5. DOBRUDZHA (Dobrich) - 11
6. ARARAT (Yerevan, Armenia) - 3
7. ARIS (Thessaloniki, Greece) - 1
8. LOKOMOTIV (Sofia) - 1
9. SPARTAK (Pleven) - 1
*number of weekly tournament wins
Modern backgammon info here.
