Liubo

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Liubo or liupo (Chinese: 六博; pinyin: liù bó; literally "six sticks") is an ancient Chinese board game.

The earliest surviving remnant of liubo dates from circa 1500 BC, the Shang Dynasty in China, carved on a slab of blue stone. For a photo of this ancient game, see Chinese web site 古代『六博』棋盤在滬首次露面北方網風雅藝軒.

As with most other games handed down to us from antiquity, exactly how liubo was played may have varied from one time period to another and one player to another and one culture to another. For example, upon analyzing the ancient literature of Greek Board Games Professor Austin remarks that Plato in the 5th to 4th centuries BC originally described petteia as a battle game, but by the time knowledge of that game reached Eustathius Macrembolites in the 12th century AD, Eustathius was calling it a race game. Professor Austin supplies other similar examples as well.

Liubo is no different. Where some may refer to liubo playing pieces as "generals" and "pawns" (see The History of Xiangqi) others refer to them as "fish," "stones" and "owls" (see Cazaux, Is Chess A Hybrid Game?).

[edit] Rules

Consequently, while some regard liubo as a battle game played with dice, others regard it as a game only akin to playing a game of cards where players accumulate points or "fishes." Though there are a number of surviving literary references to and artistic impressions of the game that date from antiquity, there are no known surviving records of the rules of liubo. Some scholars have attempted to reconstruct the game, most notably Lien-sheng Yang, who discusses the game as it was possibly played on TLV mirrors.

Lien-sheng Yang describes liubo as having been played between two players with each player having 6 men. In addition there were six sticks that that the players threw that were shared between them. Because of the lack of written documentation, the rules of the game are still as yet unconfirmed, although some scholars such as Lien-sheng Yang have made suggestions as to the method of play. From a formula written by an expert player of liubo, Yang theorizes that a player’s piece would start on an L and try to move to a V depending on stick rolls. At this moment certain throws by the sticks would allow one’s piece to move into the center and ‘kill’ the opponent’s piece if already present in the center. Once present in the center, one’s piece could begin to block the enemy’s pieces from taking the square. For each block one would gain two points. One could also attempt to recover one’s pieces after they are blocked, and would gain three points for doing this. If one failed to win after having blocked two men, then the opponent would gain six points and win the game. The first player to six points would win the game. One noteworthy literary reference of liubo is found in the 3rd century BC poem Chao hun by Sung Yu.

Because we do know that liubo was played by some as a "battle game" (with sticks that were similar to dice) it has gained the distinction of having perhaps spawned the creative development of Xiàngqí (also known as Chinese Chess), another ancient Chinese battle game (played without dice). Furthermore, some may point out how the board design of liubo lends itself to a Xiàngqí-like grid of squares.

Liubo is thought to have lost its popularity by around the 6th century AD.