Tavla, okey and dama: the games you will see in every tea house

Walk past any tea house in Turkey and you will hear it before you see it: the rapid-fire slap of backgammon pieces. Board games are a national pastime, the gulet always has a set or two on board, and knowing the rules is the quickest way into a conversation with the crew. Here are the three you will meet.

Tavla (backgammon)

The same board and the same aim as the Western game: move your fifteen pieces round to your home quarter and bear them off before your opponent. The differences are in the manners. Turks play fast - think while your opponent rolls, not after - and announce the dice in Persian-derived words (sheshbesh for 6-5, dubara for 2-2) that are worth learning for the applause they earn. There is no doubling cube, and the loser of a game rolls first in the next. A backgammon (mars) counts double. Expect to be beaten by anyone over sixty.

Okey

A tile game for four, closely related to rummy and Rummikub, played with 106 numbered tiles in four colours plus two jokers. Each player has fourteen tiles on a rack and tries to arrange them into sets (same number, different colours) and runs (consecutive numbers, same colour), drawing and discarding one tile a turn. The twist is that the joker for each round is decided by a tile turned over at the start: whichever number is one higher than it, in the same colour, becomes wild. Games move quickly and the scoring arguments afterwards are part of the fun. Every cafe has the racks stacked in a corner.

Dama (Turkish draughts)

Draughts on an 8x8 board, but pieces move forwards and sideways rather than diagonally, capture by jumping in those directions, and you must take the maximum capture available. A piece reaching the far rank becomes a dama and moves like a rook. It is faster and more aggressive than the English game and surprisingly deep.

Where you will play

On the gulet in the long hour after lunch when everyone is too full to swim. In the tea garden in Selcuk under the aqueduct. In the cave hotel lounge in Cappadocia. Carved wooden tavla boards from the Grand Bazaar are the best souvenir on the route - mother-of-pearl inlay on walnut for the serious, a folding travel set for everyone else.

The gulet week is on Istanbul to Fethiye with Gulet Cruise, Gulet Cruise & Cappadocia to Istanbul and All Around Turkey with Gulet Cruise.