Playing Backgammon Underwater
What’s your favorite location for a backgammon game? Some prefer to play backgammon online, from the comfort of their own homes, many others like to play backgammon on the beach. Some others take the "backgammon on the beach" cliché into extreme; they play backgammon underwater, and this is how it looks like:
The 1st Annual UW Backgammon World Championship took place last September at the Mediterranean Sea, in the South East coast of Mallorca, Spain with dozens of adventurous backgammon enthusiasts/scuba divers, and the registration to the 2nd annual event (scheduled to September 2009 at the same place) has already begin.
As if the playing environment was not stressful enough, the tournament directors of the Underwater Backgammon World Championship added some extra rules to toughen the competition: each player was limited with only one tank, and only one opportunity to get buddy breathing from a single tank in the final. All the backgammon games were taken under the watching goggles of Erik, a backgammon referee of German.
In addition, the backgammon players had to deal with issues unfamiliar to the over the board backgammon player (not to mention the online backgammon player) such as leveling the backgammon board without creating an underwater sand storm, finding the correct weight of the dice, and so on. Nevertheless, three extreme backgammon players stepped out with medals: Ilya of Greece, at the top followed by Lottie and Henrik, both of Sweden.