Read the amazing story of "The Wizard of Oz", a 22 unprofessional backgammon player named Oz, who played so remarkably at the 2008 Portuguese Open, they had to come up with a new trophy especially for him.

Oz Cohen-Zada is a 22 years old ex-serviceman of Israel, who, following his win at the Backgammon Championship of Israel organized by Play65 last March, got to represent his country at the WBA Portuguese Open 2008 held at the beginning of May. 

While Oz’s backgammon experience sums up to three years of amateur playing during his army service, his opponents at the backgammon event held in Casino Estoril in Portugal were the world’s leading pro players with Israeli Michel Natanzon aka Falafel, German Götz Hildsberg and Francois Tardieu of France among them. Nevertheless, Oz made it into the Masters Division.

On his first match at the tournament, Oz had defeated his German opponent Andreas Humke 13-0. Soon after, he found out that he played against the wrong opponent, and his came was out of the bracket. Therefore, he had to play another game. In his second game, Oz lost to the Portuguese millionaire Jose Salema and dropped out of the Masters Division (which eventually won by Oz’s compatriot Falafel).

Oz came back at the Consolation Division, where he continued amazing everyone by winning four recognized backgammon players. After beating Carter Mattig of the US, Oz made it to the semi-finals, by dropped out of the lucrative competition after losing the another Play65 qualifier, Denis Etienne of Sweden. 

By the time he made it to the Last Chance event, Oz was recognized as a phenomenon and he was nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz". He started out with an absolutely shocking triumph over French backgammon champ Francois Tardieu and continued winning Badri Tsertsevadze and Rida Hassan on his way to the top, where he lost to the Veteran Robert Wachtel of the United States. At the end of the 2008 Portuguese Open, Oz Cohen-Zada received a special fair play prize at the awards ceremony. 

The Wizard of Oz contemplating his next move

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 9:30 am and is filed under Playing Backgammon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.