The story was about a New Haven lawyer named Marcy Kossar who is getting back into competitive backgammon playing.

Good for her.

Kossar, we understand, is an avid backgammon player.

But for her, it’s more than a hobby.

She travels to competitions throughout the country where top players battle for money and pride.

Part of the reason she can do this is that her kids are in college.

She’s always played competitively, but now she’s really getting back into it.

“I’ve always been a games and puzzles person,” said Kossar, the director of development at New Haven Legal Assistance and in charge of raising funds for the organization.

She told the Law Journal, “I needed something else in my life [after her three children went to college], and this was like second nature,” she added.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, Kossar traveled to a 64-player tournament in Detroit where she ended up netting $1,000 after paying her travel expenses.

She plans to participate in six more competitions between October and next March, including the prestigious national tournament in Las Vegas in November.

“When you win, you feel really lucky and it’s a lot of fun,” Kossar told the Journal. “Plus, you get to meet people that you’d never meet in your life.”

Kossar started playing the game competitively when she was living in Washington, D.C., in the early 1980s.

Back then, clubs and bars held weekly backgammon nights and the local games were played with $5 and $10 at stake.

She stopped playing for nearly 20 years to raise her children, and when she re-entered the competitive backgammon world two years ago, she noticed a significant change.

“The ability of the players had increased dramatically,” she said, because of the ability to play online against computers and other people around the world. “There are now computer programs available that analyze all of these moves in a game and tell you whether there was a better move you could make.”

Now it’s a lot more fun for someone with her intellectual capacity.

Now, she can analyze her own moves.

Ain’t that cool?

Watch for her at a tournament near you.

Martin Smith

The term “bots” has gotten an ill-reputation for itself. Perhaps it is mainly due to the fact that humans tend to take advantage of these bots and use them to gain an unfair edge over other human players. However, bots are not necessarily evil. If you think about it, automated trainers for backgammon (and other games for that matter) are also bots. We use them for a good purpose and they are not considered “evil” then.

That is exactly what Martin Smith had in mind when he created his family of bots – ProBot, RookieBot, AmateurBot, and BeginnerBot. This family of software is the brainchild of Smith, who constantly develops the programs and releases them to the public. Anyone who wants to test his skills and talents against Smith’s bots are welcome to do so.

For those who have the skill AND the money, stakes can go up as high as ₤1,000. For those who merely wish to hone their skills without losing a penny, it is also possible with one of the bots. The Financial Times recently featured Smith and his creations and had this to say:

These disembodied opponents are good teachers because they play well both strategically and tactically, unlike a good human player who, in backgammon for example, will tend to deviate from best play in order to ¬punish a lesser opponent’s mistakes. If you go online to play backgammon, you can take on other human players who are also online or you can challenge one of Smith’s programs. And if you choose that latter option, you will be at the coalface of artificial intelligence in the commercial world.

These are contests that take place on constantly shifting terrain. Smith releases his latest version of a program: it wins for a couple of weeks, then the humans figure out how to beat it and they win for a couple of weeks while Smith goes away and works on his software – algorithms, probability calculations, search techniques – and scratches his head. Then he comes back with a new version of the program that wins for a couple of weeks, while the humans go away and think about it. “We have this ratcheting up,” Smith says. “It’s a very intellectually rewarding thing.”

Indeed, the mere challenge of beating a machine – which is supposed to be faster and more logical than a human opponent – is enough for some people. Money need not even be part of the equation. But of course, if you can win ₤1,000 while you’re having fun, why not?

Uli Koch is sitting on the left

Ever heard of Uli Koch?  If you followed the proceedings at the London Open Champion, you would know who he is.  He has been called my many the King of Backgammon.  How so?

From May 30 to May 31, the tournament was held at Doggett’s Coat and Badge at Blackfriars Bridge in Southwark, sponsored by The CasinoRip.com.  Roundabouts a hundred contestants joined the fray to enjoy the games AND hopefully emerge as the champion.  But it was a German player who reigned supreme.

Online Casino Reports has the story:

It was the talented German player Uli Koch who scored a magnificent triumph over his competition as he recorded yet another stunning victory to add to his ever-growing list of wins. Koch outplayed Julian Fetterlein in what many considered an exceptionally tense final game. However the victory didn’t come as much of a surprise to those following Koch’s performances. Over the years the German has notched up an impressive series of high-level victories.

For almost 40 years Uli Koch has been fine-tuning his craft and on Sunday 31 May, he nailed the big prize to cap off a successful tournament for the organizers. In total some £12,000 in prizes were awarded. But it was the finale that many aficionados of the game were most excited about. Koch and Fetterlein went head to head with the former emerging victorious to thunderous applause.

As you can see, Koch is not new to the game and all his efforts have paid off.  I bet that we’re going to hear more of him soon.

Who is he indeed? If you have been a backgammon fan for a long time, the name might ring a bell. Alternatively, if you play other games such as bridge, you would also probably recognize the name.

Oswald Jacoby became best known for his association with bridge but he met undisputed success in the field of backgammon as well. Remember the Jacoby rule? That was not an invented name – it actually came from Oswald Jacoby’s name. So is he, really?

Lewis Deyong once wrote about this famous guy, based on his personal experience. He wrote:

As well as writing a daily bridge column for 1000s of newspapers, his profession was as an insurance actuary (a job 100% devoted to calculating odds). He lived in Dallas, flying around America to compete at his various games, and was one of the most outstanding characters I ever met.

He also described Jacoby as “perhaps the world’s most impatient human being, who just wanted to speed up the game.”

More than this personal description of Jacoby, here are other facts that you might want to know.

Jacoby was dubbed the World Backgammon Champion in 1972. He also wrote a book titled The Backgammon Book. This was published in 1970 and was co-authored by John R. Crawford. Now look at the dates – he wrote the book two years before he became world champion. There must be something to the book, don’t you think? (Oh and yeah, this book is widely regarded as the first book to present backgammon in analytical terms.)

So ladies and gentlemen, that’s your bit of backgammon knowledge for the week. Till next time!

I have just come back from a week long vacation and I have to admit that I have what I like to call “end of vacation blues.” You know, when you cannot seem to focus on your work and when you seem to have no inclination to do anything except to go back to wherever you were for vacation. In my case, all I can think of is the beach. White powdery sand, crystal clear waters, and the warmth of the sun on my skin.

I have never been to Greece but maybe it will be next destination. Aside from being famous for its awesome beaches, Greece is the perfect place to be if you love playing backgammon. I just read somewhere that people in Greece are so into this game. This is really not a surprising thing as backgammon has always been part of the Greek culture. In fact, some of the oldest variations of this game originate from Greece!

By the way, that “somewhere” I mentioned up there is actually an article by Marina Nikolova, who shares that backgammon is really embedded in their culture. She writes that they play backgammon everywhere – at home, in coffee shops, and AT THE BEACH! Now wouldn’t that just be heaven – playing backgammon at the beach, sipping an ice cold drink all the while?

I am also pretty sure that one can find wonderful backgammon boards for sale in Greece. All this being said, I cannot think of a reason NOT TO go to Greece on my next vacation, can you?