Tavli: The Board Game Where a Six Is Called "Aphrodite"

In every Greek kafeneio, one sound simply belongs: the clatter of dice and wooden pieces on an open board. Two men sit across from each other, a coffee goes cold, and neither one looks at their phone – they're playing tavli. The word simply means "board", and that's exactly what it is: a wooden case that opens up into two playing surfaces.

Tavli is ancient – dice games on similar boards can be traced back roughly 5,000 years to Mesopotamia, and even in antiquity Greeks are said to have played with bone dice known as astragaloi. In Greece this grew into its own game with three variants played in succession: Portes, the simplest form, Plakoto, where the pieces start entirely off the board, and Fevga, the most demanding variant – for true connoisseurs. And because Greeks love giving their luck a name, a rolled six is affectionately called "Aphrodite", while a one gets mocked simply as "dog".

It used to be mainly a men's kafeneio thing, where politics and village gossip got discussed between rounds. Today, almost everyone in Greece plays – on the beach, on the ferry, in the park, on any random cafe terrace. Most tavernas keep a board close at hand, free for guests, and if you grew up there, you learned it almost automatically from your father, grandfather, or older cousin – never from a book, always at the table.

What makes the game so special is this mix of strategy and chance: you can play as cleverly as you like, but in the end the dice always have a say – and that's exactly why every round stays exciting, no matter how many times you've played it before.

We keep a tavli board ready here – just ask if you feel like a round with your ouzo. And don't forget: only 5 days left until our Drachmen Fest on 29.09. – live music, prices like it's 1960! And mark your calendars already: from 04.10. to 15.10. we're closed for our annual break, and from 16.10. we're back for you.