And in this guest post Phil Simborg is reporting from 14th Annual Ohio State Backgammon Championship:

I was pleased not only to attend this very fine ABT event, but I was also happy to be the Auctioneer for the Calcutta. I guess I got carried away doing the auction, as I ended up buying 4 teams with my partner. The good news is that someone came into the money on 3 of the 4 teams, so we made a few bucks on the deal in addition to our fun.

On Saturday morning, I gave a lecture to Intermediate and Beginner players on the basics of tournament play. There were 43 people in attendance, and I am told it was well-received. Many of the players there are friends and acquaintances from Play65 and other on-line play.

Then the actual play began, and for me, it was very exciting as I won my first three matches, beating some very fine Championship Level players. A good friend of mine, Greg Merriman, said he had an amazing place to go for dinner, and we ended up spending a lovely 2-hour dinner break with Scott Casty at one of the finest gourmet restaurants in the country by the name of Johnny’s. What a great surprise. It truly was one of the finer gourmet meals I’ve ever had.

The problem is, however, you cannot have a really fine meal like that without some really fine wine, and at $120 a bottle, we did indulge ourselves. Normally, I make it a rule never to drink alcohol when I am still alive in the main, but this meal demanded an exception, and the wine was as unbelievable as the food. I am sure I was not tipsy after the meal, but the results were sure tipsy, as I proceeded to lose my next three matches. I can’t blame it on the wine, however, as Scott drank and ate as much as I, and he won all of his matches but one and took the award for First Consolation.

It was a great event, well-attended, and I was also thrilled to see an old, great friend win the Championships.

See results below:

Championship: 1-Antoinette-Marie Williams (NY) 2-Robert Lessard (Canada) 1st Consolation: Steve Hast (PA)

Advanced: 1-Rose Sheedy (IN) 2-Chris Knapp (Canada) 1st Consolation: Scott Casty

Novice: 1-Ryan Hast (PA)

Masters: Thomas Meyer (IL)

Doubles: Peggy Jackson (OH) & Alan Martin (FL)

Following our newly born tradition of 1st person tournament coverage, Play65 blog is happy to host a special guest post by Phil Simborg, a legendary backgammon writer and a professional backgammon player who reports, especially for Play65 blog, on the last Las Vegas backgammon tournament. 

Las Vegas Tournament Report

By Phil Simborg 

Though I didn’t win the tournament, it was a most exciting one for me as I did win the 2 point Mimi match side event, and I enjoyed the competition, the trophy, and the money. 

Many of the top players in the world were in attendance in this highly prestigious event which was extremely well-run by Howard Markowitz and his staff. 

In the main event, I had one of the most exciting tournament as well, as I beat some of the best players in the world including Nack Ballard, Bill Robertie, and Perry Gartner. My luck failed me toward the end, and that left the door open for one of the all-time great players, Joe Russell, to advance to the finals. 

In the finals he met a top local player from Las Vegas, Drew Giavannis, and Drew won a most exciting finals 17-14. 

In the Super Jackpot, my good friend John O’Hagan defeated Nack Ballard. 

                                                                John O’Hagan            vs.          Nack Ballard

In the finals of my mini match, I had a very tough play to make. It is double match play, and I was black and it looked like I was about to win easily when I rolled the ONLY NUMBER that leaves a shot, 6-5. The question is, should I take two checkers off or should I move a checker to the ace point. What would you do?

Answer: The right play is to move the checker to the ace point. If he does roll a 1, he still has to get by your 4-prime, and he might even roll a 1 with a 4 which gives you a double shot in his inner board. If he rolls a 6, he’s out of your hair and you probably win the race easily. 

There was a big crowd watching, and a lot of side bets, and a couple of the best players in the world bet on the wrong play. Myself, over the board, I wasn’t sure, so to everyone’s amazement, I flipped a coin! It came up heads, I made the wrong play and got hit! The good news is that I rolled 6-6 and went on to win the game.

Karsten Bredahl, the Dane backgammon player who represented Play65 at the recent 2008 Nordic Open, has published his memories from the prestigious event on the renewed internet backgammon magazine, GammOnLine. Some highlights from Karsten’s Nordic Open diary:

On the Championship Flight Draw:

"…Personally I should go for "no. 3", but expectations were small as the field contained a record number of 154 players in the Champ Flight and 33,500 Euros for the winner.The draw was made and I received the worst possible draw…. I was in the same quadrant as Gus Hansen, Goetz Hildsberg, Falafel, Mochy, Thomas Hansen, Marinos Hindkjaer and Lars Nielsen."

On the Consolation Flight:

"…I should have played "the consolation-champ" Rida Hassan (Egypt)…I began with absolutely natural dice and got ahead 6-0. Now I began to feel my own medicine and all of a sudden I was trailing 6-9… In the second attempt I managed to roll a 6-2 and after that I forced Mr. Hassan down to an acepoint game with borderline bad timing. He never hit any of the 2 shots I left him and I was in the final where some unknown guy from Japan was waiting for me."

As you recall, the "unknown guy from Japan" was no other than Masayuki Mochizuki aka Mochy (no. 6 on the 2007 Giants of Backgammon list), who was later crowned Consolation Champion and Karsten the Consolation Finalist.

Past, present and permanent students know that there’s more than one way to study for an exam, for example. Some needs to talk it out loud in order to understand, while others won’t start off their studies unless equipped with a set of markers in (at least) three colors.

The same applies when learning how to play backgammon. Assuming that some of you BG newbies might just stare at the screen numbly if their first introduction to backgammon rules would be a long, elaborated article and others have trouble concentrating when watching backgammon how-to videos, Play65blog provides backgammon beginners with an additional alternative. Watch the upcoming series of backgammon slideshows and learn how to play backgammon.

First, start with an introduction to backgammon basics: the format of the backgammon board, the object of the game and some fundamental backgammon terms.

Next, learn how to set up the backgammon board for the opening position of the game.

Once the board is set up and ready for a play, the backgammon game begins, the dice are rolled and the checkers move but how and to where? Check up the backgammon rules slide-show to find the answer.

If by now backgammon seems like a children’s game, there comes the part where you hit blots and enter from the bar and changes the entire picture.

The doubling cube makes it even more complicated and even the last stage of the game, the bearing off, can still change the final result.

Online Games Sales Drop…Guess Who’s to Blame…

According to the (former) head of the user research division in Microsoft, Bill Fulton, the average online gamer is responsible to drop in the sales of online games. In his, (and it is safe to say "his" in this case) "frequently barbaric" behavior, which in the worse case includes sexist and racist insults and cheats, team-killing, dropping in the worsen case, the online gamer sends away potential buyers.

To solve this problem and to increase the sales of Microsoft online games, Fulton suggests game designers to design a more sociable social design in games, such as a "swear words filter for text chat", or a different rating system that rewards players for not killing their teammates. 

Luckily, backgammon is a two-players game, therefore team killing is not an issue for Play65. However, problems such as swearing and dropping do raise their ugly heads once in a while. 

So How Play65 Handles Online Gamers’ Unfriendly Behavior? 

When a player disconnects in the middle of the backgammon game played in a real money mode, the player will pay a penalty. The size of the penalty is determined by the win/lose percentages of the disconnected player. If a player disconnects constantly, he/she will be traced by Play65 system and their online account can be deleted and they will be banned from the software for good. 

Additionally, players who have joined Play65 backgammon community can, in a mouse click, to block opponents who drop, disconnect, use foul language or otherwise pollute the online backgammon environment. 

Suggested reading:

• Backgammon cheating outside the cyber space - a dice crook got caught at a live backgammon tournament…
• Types of online backgammon cheats plus tips on how to detect and castrate them…