Jacquet or jaquet is a tables game of parallel movement played on a backgammon-like board, very similar or identical to Fevga. It is distinct from other parallel-movement games (like Bräde) in that there is no hitting and no trapping; it is distinct from contrary-movement games (like Backgammon and Plakoto) in that all pieces move in the same direction; it is distinct from point-scoring games (like Trictrac and Toccategli) in that it is a straightforward race game; it is distinct from games in which doubles count once (like Trictrac) in that doubles count twice; and it is specifically unique in its use of the courier or jockey, a designated piece that must reach the final quadrant (the jan de retour) before any of the other pieces are moved.
Other names for Jacquet include Chaquete, 31, Tawla 31, Wāḥid wi-Talātīn, Maghrebiyya, and Mültezim. It is popular not only in France, but also in Greece (where it is played in fixed rotation with Backgammon and Plakoto), Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Spain, and Syria; it is played little or not at all in Iran, the United Kingdom, the United States, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden.
History and culture Jacquet emerged around 1800, eventually to become "the benchmark for tables games in France". Its oldest known rules were published in 1818 by LepeintreLe Jeu de Jacquet at salondesjeux.fr. Retrieved 25 October 2021. as an appendix to his guide to playing Trictrac. During the course of the Trente Glorieuses, the game of Jacquet underwent something of a fad, displacing Trictrac in popularity, until Jacquet itself lost primacy first to Backgammon (as a tables game) and subsequently to television (as a means of entertainment generally).Parlett (1999), p. 86.
In the 19th century, Jacquet was universally played in France on boards designed for Trictrac; these had twelve scoring holes drilled in each side rail, and three additional holes in each end rail. Such boards were usually sold with Trictrac-specific scoring equipment (alternatively, the players supplied their own), but the pack-in rules were generally those of Jacquet only. The reason might be surmised to be economic: the complexity of Trictrac is such that learning its complete, executable rules requires reading and internalising a paperback of approximately 120 pages, while the rules of Jacquet fit on a single double-sided sheet of paper, often given away for free with the board. (Such paperbacks commonly retailed, in 1773, for the price of one French livre and ten sous.)
With the beginning of the Jacquet fad, boards specific to this game were developed. These no longer had scoring holes (because Jacquet, unlike Trictrac, is a pure race game), nor a bar sufficiently wide to accommodate one of the two-inch discs that serve as men without it falling over (because Jacquet does not use the bar in any capacity at all—Trictrac uses it as a logical separator only, while Backgammon and Bräde use it as a sort of gaol for hit men). Such boards differ from the latter-day style of Backgammon board (as popularised in the United States) chiefly in their material characteristics (Jacquet boards of the twentieth century are generally upholstered in blue or green baize, with boxwood men, and the outside of the board normally has markings for chess or international draughts).
Importantly, though, in the early 20th century and beyond, Trictrac boards continued to be manufactured and sold by firms like Arthaud of Paris and C. Michel of Chambéry; so too are Jacquet boards, as well as the screen-printed baize necessary for their routine restoration after heavy use over long years. Likewise, writing in 1979, Jacques Léchalet states that Jacquet is the most popular tables game in FranceLéchalet (1979), p. 2., while diagramming it on a Trictrac board with hole markings (in the same work, he sets out the rules of Jacquet de toutes tables—which is no more nor less than one of the French terms for Backgammon—as his collaborator Jean Tourangin does for Trictrac).
It is thus fair to say that the popularity of Backgammon, Trictrac, and Jacquet relative to one another has shifted (sometimes drastically) over the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries; it is not fair to say, for the sake of example, that Trictrac has been superseded or displaced by either of the other two games, though it is certainly the least widely played of the three, for reasons that may not be apparent at first blush and that have to do with their respective communities of players. Moreover, it is demonstrably false to say, as Léchalet did, that:
Jacquet, in particular, is essentially synonymous with French café culture, beaches, and verandas; its character is straightforwardly demotic, in contradistinction to Trictrac, which, ever since its invention, acquired a not altogether undeserved association with salons, drawing rooms, and offices. For example, Euverte Jollyvet states, as early as the seventeenth century (in a book first published in 1635):
Abbé Laurent Soumille, in the preface to his treatise Le Grand Trictrac, is no less blunt one hundred years later:
Meanwhile, Léchalet makes a virtue of Jacquet's demotic accessibility:
Prior to the arrival of Jacquet in France, one influential—but anonymous—Trictrac rulebook (known as le Charpentier in the community) imputed the same virtues (particularly its interruptibility) to Backgammon:
The vernacular aspect of Jacquet is also borne out by the fact that no universally accepted rules of Jacquet exist, though they differ essentially in only minor respects; in contrast, the rules of Trictrac have remained stable since 1635, although it has itself grown two variants in the intervening time. Jacquet therefore fills a specific niche in the French imagination: it is scarcely possible to imagine a Trictrac match being played in a noisy leisure centre atrium or on a popular beach—not for socioeconomic reasons, but because the game simply does not tolerate a divided attention span—but such a setting is essentially ideal for Jacquet.
At the end of the nineteenth century, in 1896, the short film directed by Louis Lumière and entitled Partie de Tric-trac in fact depicts a game of Jacquet, recognisable from the direction in which the men move around the board and from the quadruple moves connected with doublets of the dice. For one reason or another, the author used the name Tric-trac for the title of his short film; while a mistake is possible, it instead could conceivably have been intentional as a reference to Prosper Mérimée's book of the same name.
It may be noted, however, that the above captures a sample of Jacquet culture as it exists in France, rather than any sort of global panorama. Jacquet is identical—or almost identical, depending on which rules have been consulted—to the Turkish game Mültezim or the Greek game Fevga. In those countries (as well as in Bulgaria and Syria), it is often played in rotation with Backgammon and Plakoto, an arrangement known as Tavli. The boards used in those countries are, quite simply, Backgammon boards; the culture associated with play whether of Jacquet or of Tavli in Syria or in Bulgaria is, once again, the culture of Backgammon, and the identity of "demanding indoor game of strategy" belongs and has always belonged instead to Chess.
It is also worth noting that, during the 19th century, confusion existed in French sources which sometimes equated Jacquet to Backgammon, but a distinctive feature was that the majority of pieces or men could not be moved until the first one, the courier, had reached the fourth quarter of the board. Other differences are that players start with all 15 men on their rightmost point (i.e. diagonally opposite from one another) and then play in the same direction around the boardFiske (1905), p. 183. (though this is also true of Bräde, as well as all other parallel games).
Principle Players move their men around the board and then wait until they are all in the last quarter to remove them off the board. The movement of the men is based on the roll of the dice. Either two men are moved, each based on the pip count of one of the two dice; or one man is moved based on the combined pip count. The special feature of Jacquet is the obligation to bring one of the men into the last quarter of the board before the rest are moved; this man is the 'courier' or 'postilion' (postillon).Histoire des Jeux de Société, Jean-Marie Lhôte, Ed. Flammarion Once the postilion is in place, the rest may move forward. The goal of the game is to be the first player to bear all 15 of one's own men off the board.Parlett (1999), pp. 75–76.
Rules
1. Players, equipment and object Jacquet is played by two players on a board of twenty-four alternating points, divided into four tables of six points each.
The equipment consists of:
fifteen men of one colour for each player; two dice, used by both players; and one dice-cup for each player.
Each player must conduct all fifteen of his men once around the board, bring them into his final or home table (jan de retour), and then bear them off. The first player to bear off all fifteen men wins.
Unlike Backgammon, men are never hit or captured and unlike Trictrac, points do not figure; there is therefore no need for side-rail holes or for a central bar, although if the board does have these things, it is certainly not to its disadvantage.
2. Setting up the board All fifteen men of each colour begin together upon a single starting point. They may be arranged in three or four small stacks on that point for convenience.
The two starting stacks are placed so that each player has the opponent’s men before him and to his left. Equivalently, each player controls the stack lying to his opponent’s left.
From its starting point, each set of men follows its prescribed circuit around the board and ultimately enters the six-point home table on that player’s right.
The point from which a man starts is not counted. The next point in the direction of movement counts as one, the following point as two, and so forth.
3. Determining the first player Each player throws one die. The higher throw has the first play; equal throws are repeated.
Under the ordinary rule, the two numbers shown by the deciding dice constitute the opening roll: the winning player plays both numbers. Alternatively, the winning player may either use those two numbers or pick up both dice and throw them afresh. This should be agreed before play.
Thereafter the players alternate, throwing both dice on every turn.
A roll is traditionally announced with the higher die first: for example, “four–three”, “five–ace” or “six–two”. The dice should not be picked up until the player has seen and announced them.
4. Playing the dice Each die represents a separate movement.
The two numbers may be:
played with two different men; or played successively with the same man.
When the same man uses both dice, the intermediate point is treated as having been played or “marked”, even though the man does not remain there. That intermediate point must therefore be legally available.
For example, on a roll of four–three, a man may move four points and then three, provided both the four-point intermediate landing and the final landing are legal.
Dice can be played in either order. The direction that the higher number is named first concerns the announcement of the roll, not necessarily its order of play.
Every legally playable number should be used. A number for which there is no legal move is lost. If neither number can be played, the player passes the turn.
The convention in Trictrac is that, in the case of "impotence" (impuissance, the inability to play a die for lack of legal moves), the higher die must be used; if it is impotent, then the lower die; and only in the case of both being impotent may the player skip his turn. This convention is also normally played in Jacquet.