BACKGAMMON VS SUFFRAGETTO

Backgammon is one of the oldest known board games. Its history can be traced back nearly 5,000 years to archaeological discoveries in Mesopotamia. It is a two-player game where each player has fifteen pieces (checkers or men) that 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. Backgammon involves a combination of strategy and luck (from rolling dice). While the dice may determine the outcome of a single game, the better player will accumulate the better record over a series of many games. With each roll of the dice, players must choose from numerous options for moving their checkers and anticipate possible counter-moves by the opponent. The optional use of a doubling cube allows players to raise the stakes during the game. Like chess, backgammon has been studied with great interest by computer scientists. Owing to this research, backgammon software such as TD-Gammon has been developed that is capable of beating world-class human players.

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Suffragetto was a board game published in the United Kingdom around 1908 by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and manufactured by Sargeant Bros. Ltd. In modern terms, it was developed to "enact feminist ideology in a hybrid fantasy-real world environment" to support the activist strategies of the suffragettes. The game is a contest of occupation featuring two players around a grid board representing the streets of Edwardian London. One player plays 21 green markers as the radical suffragettes, the other player plays 21 dark blue markers as the police constables. The objective of the suffragettes is to break through police lines and enter the House of Commons, while at the same time preventing the police from entering Albert Hall. The objective of the police is to disrupt the meeting of the suffragettes by entering Albert Hall, while at the same time preventing them from entering the House of Commons. "Arrested" suffragettes are confined to the "prison" section of the board, whereas "disabled" constables are confined to the "hospital" section. The game is won by the first player who introduces six markers into the opponent's base. The WSPU were enthusiastic about manufacturing and selling the game, as it would allow the organisation to continue running without having to depend on donations from wealthy individuals. Oxford's Bodleian Libraries has the only known surviving copy of the game. Suffragetto was among several children's games designed at that time around the themes of gender, resistance, and social relationships, along with the contemporaneous games Panko and Pank-a-Squith (1909). The goal of the latter was to navigate a suffragette (led by Emmeline Pankhurst) down a long path from her home to parliament, past obstacles placed by the Liberal government (led by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith).

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