Welcome to the Trictrac Home Page! This is my slow, ongoing attempt, to explore the game of Trictrac and share my exploration.
| I have released version 0.3 of
Soumille, The First Trictrac Program. A screen shot appears below. If you would interested in obtaining the software, please email me. Please see a draft of the User Guide |
Trictrac is a rich, formal game that was immensely popular in French society prior to the revolution. The game was so closely associated with the courts of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI that during the revolution, most Trictrac boards were destroyed as symbols of the monarchy.
I collect books on card and boards games, but resisted books on Trictrac for a long time. They are in old French and I never expected to be able to read them. One day, I ran across an exquisitely bound but affordable copy of Soumille's Le Grand Trictrac (1756). It contains 270 woodblock prints of Trictrac positions showing the course of play, move by move. With the help of my high school French and a Larousse dictionary, I was able to make some sense out of the game. I have been collecting Trictrac books ever since.
I have transcribed the first game in Soumille along with diagrams and descriptions which should give you a good introduction to the game.
Many modern backgammon books refer to Trictrac only as the French name for backgammon. As these pages show, true Trictrac is a different game and I am aware of only works in English that discuss it:
These pages are my attempt to fill that void. If you run across others, please email me.
