Play65 is happy to introduce brand new backgammon tournaments and bonuses:  

Before Sunrise Tournament (Freeroll) 

 Night birds or early risers can join an online backgammon tournament right after partying or before milking the cows. Everyday at 4am GMT, a freeroll tournament will be held on the Play65 server. The entry is free and the 1st prize is $60. Note that the freeroll has limited quota of 120 players, so set your alarm clock to 2am to ensure your participation.   

17 GMT Tournaments 

Clearly, this new tournament will be held daily on 17 GMT. Entry fees are paid in 2000 stars and the prize is $140 in real money. 

Coming soon - backgammon tournament with real money prizes for FUN players only

You will get an additional reminder with the details once these tourneys will begin. 

$30,000 Grand Online Backgammon Tournament 

Play65 grand tradition is coming to its end. December 1st, 2008 is your last chance to win $30,000 in an online backgammon tournament by winning no more than two games. Entry fee to the biggest backgammon tournament online is $150 and 128 players can win prizes. 

Play65 New Bonus

New 100% first deposit bonus on Play65:

Double your first deposit* by using the bonus code GET200

* Up to $200

The backgammon world is excited with the recent discovery that the doubling cube was invented by Russian royalty scion known as Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich.

 Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia is the inventor of the doubling cube

Up until now it was argued that the doubling cube was introduced to the backgammon world around the 1920s (though the basic concept of doubling was familiar from the game of golf). Now, more than 80 years after the invention changed modern backgammon and turned it into a faster, strategier and much more exciting game, Gammonlife publishes that Frank Frigo, the 1994 World Backgammon Champion spread the word and his collectors copy of 1930 The New Yorker, according to which Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia is the inventor of the doubling cube.                                                                              

Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia died in 1941, and most of the people surrounded the 1920 backgammon circuit are probably no longer with us, so no can approve or disapprove the accuracy of this claim. Anyway, let’s find out more on the guy who supposably invented the doubling cube: 

• Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich was born in 1891 to the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia and Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark. His grandfather was Alexander II of Russia.
• In 1916 he was involved in the murder of Rasputin, a controversial Russian mystic who was related to the Tsar family. Similar to the doubling cube story, his exact involvement in the assassination have not been solved yet. However, recent studies show that he was the one who shot Rasputin (after the poisoning did not work as fast as planned), yet the blame was laid on his partner Prince Felix Yusupov, to guarantee Dmitri rise to the throne.

Ra Ra Rasputin

• While Dmitri was away on the Persian front, his family was murdered by the Bolsheviks. He immigrated to London and never came back to his homeland, and obviously never reached to the throne.
• Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich was known as a womanizer. His black list includes Russian ballerina Vera Karalli, the Duchess of Marlborough, Coco Chanel, and his Rasputin murder associate, Felix Yusupov.
• During his affair with French fashion designer Coco Chanel, the two had developed the Chanel No. 5 perfume, one of the world’s most popular perfumes till our days.
• Dmitri wed American heiress Audrey Emery and the couple raised one son in Florida.
• Living in America, Dmitri played an active part in the high society social life, where backgammon tournaments were a common leisure.

What Board Game Are You?

I am boggle, thus incredibly creative and resourceful, able to dig deep and think outside the box, a non linear thinker, don’t like following directions and draw constant inspiration from the strangest places.

Is there any backgammon out there?

And if so, what are the main characteristics of a backgammon person? He/she has to be analytical, patient yet quick minded with capability to plan things ahead and rescue themselves out of impasses. And they’ve got to love to play board games.

Thanks to Stello for the inspiration (who admits she’s more into backgammon although she’s as witty and clever as a game of scrabble) .

Play65 quiz had just come back from a short break last week, and it is already rolling. A new backgammon quiz was asked yesterday and submission forms are being sent nonstop. Before we go over this week, 23rd quiz, let’s give our curious, impatient readers the answer to last week’s quiz:

Play65 22nd backgammon quiz asked about the 6th Abu Dhabi International Backgammon Championships in 2004, in which one of the participants, a backgammon pro named Andreas Humke won a drawing and was asked to open a door to find the grand prize – apparently not a pair of diamond-studded dice, neither a $10,000 backgammon board and nor a trip around the world, but a brand new car. Same Humke had also lost the championship to Norwegian backgammon pro Arild Idsoe.

Play65 23rd quiz is asking about the Green Bay Packers, an American football team, whose players are known for their passion for backgammon. The question then is what percentage of the team plays backgammon? If you know the answer, press submit and get into the weekly $20 bonus draw.