I play backgammon and I'm pretty good at it. I suck at most games, but backgammon - wooo!! I'll thrash ya!!! When I was in Egypt, I regularly played with the crew on the boat (who were all obsessed with it) and sometimes even beat them which surprised them cos they thought they were the best BG players ever. Ha!
I wouldn't be surprised if BG is the oldest game of all. All you need are a few stones and leaves and sticks and you can make your own playing area and counters. Brilliant.