Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest known board games. Its history can be traced back nearly 5,000 years to archeological discoveries in the Middle East, originally in Iran. It is a two player game where each player has fifteen pieces ("checkers") which move between twenty-four triangles ("points") according to the roll of two dice. The objective of the game is to be first to "bear off", i.e. move all fifteen checkers off the board. Backgammon is a member of the tables family, one of the oldest classes of board games.
Card game
The first playing cards appeared in the 9th century during Tang-dynasty China.
The first reference to the card game in world history dates no later than the 9th century, when the "Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang", written by Tang Dynasty writer Su E, described Princess (daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang) playing the "leaf game" with members of the Wei clan (the family of the princess' husband) in 868 . The Song dynasty statesman and historian Ouyang Xiu has noted that paper playing cards arose in connection to an earlier development in the book format from scrolls to pages. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), characters from popular novels such as the "Water Margin" were widely featured on the faces of playing cards. A precise description of Chinese money playing cards (in four suits) survived from the 15th century. Mahjong tiles are a 19th-century invention based on three-suited money playing card decks, similar to the way in which Rummikub tiles were derived recently from modern Western playing cards.