Expert: Mickey Hollander - 12/29/2008

Question
Hello Mickey,  just stumbled on your offer re information.  There is a game well known in middle eastern countries that I learnt a few years back and have now forgotten many of the salient points.  Perhaps you can enlighten me.  It is a game for two players. A standard chess board is used and I think 16 pieces.  The back line is unoccupied, the pieces arranged on the 2nd and 3rd rows.  Objective to win control of the board by removing the oponents pieces. Its sort of like a simplified chess or complicated draughts game.  I knew it as dumma (phonetic guess).  Heaps of people in Egypt, Jordan and Syria are very familiar with it.  Hope you can help.  Thanks Judy

Answer
Happy New Year Judy!

Well...hmmmm...Chess-liek you say?   Hmmmmm.....hmmmmm....   Oh alright, I will give this a crack.   I can't say for sure (and that pains me to no end!) that I know the game you are speaking of.   But, I did a bit of looking and will attach a couple of links to a popular site.   How does this sound?   Have a look and see if you I have found what you are referring to by following the links.   If I do not hear back, then, I will assume I helped you in some way and you are all happy and content knowing that you found it.   If not...back to the think tank for me.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5364
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5376


And, I found this list of chess-like games listed by region:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_abstract_strategy_games

And this one list many chess like variants:

http://www.schemingmind.com/variants.aspx

Once you locate the name, you can access the following site to search for rules:

www.boardgamegeek.com

Well??   I surely hope this helps!   My apologies that I am not spot on with your request.   

-mickeyjames


All the best in the New Year Judy!
-mickeyjames