Following Chicago Point, Play65* Blog is happy to reveal the bald and shiny truth of the world’s top backgammon players. Some hide it under a baseball cup, others beneath a mane of thinning hair, while some others carry it pridefully, polished and exposed. Here they are, bare and unadorned, the baldest backgammon pros:

1.   2.    3.

4.    5.   6.

Do you know to whom these smooth skulls belong? Send us your answers; the first three correct answerers will receive a free hair loss treatment.

*Play65 wishes to state that there’s nothing wrong about being bald, but the other way around: according to Wikipedia bold men are (a) wiser (b) more sexually active.

Now, a bonus question:

Alopecia totalis or a thumb?

 Find out to which bright backgammon minds these bald heads belong to!

The smart readers of Gambling Online Magazine have demonstrated their good taste once again when naming Play65 the top skill game for 2008 in the annual Readers Choice Award by awarding the backgammon site the prestigious Gold Medal in the Top Skill Game category.

"Beer Gammon" is the drinking variation of the popular board game of backgammon. In the most common variation of the game, it played regularly, according to standard backgammon rules, except that every time a checker has been hit and sent to the bar, the hit player is obligated to consume a set amount of an alcoholic beverage. According to another variation, every borne off piece requires its players to swig. Additional variations can involve drinking a number of glasses that matches the number rolled by the dice, forcing the loser to sip the attained scoring of each individual game: two dozes if the opponent won in a gammon, three if it is backgammon, and so on. Additional ideas are welcomed. 

Back in the 1970s, during backgammon heydays, when the game co-starred in commercials, it represented luxury and chic. Take a look at the Revlon commercial from 1973:

Smart blonde pops of a private jet, runs some business errands, mingles with the working class, plays backgammon in a bar (0:18), and in between refreshes herself with sprays of Charlie.

Or this Hanes pantyhose commercial from 1977:

Gentlemen (who play backgammon, drink champagne and own yachts) prefer Hanes.

Back to our days, backgammon makes a surprising appearance in one of the most mocked infomercials:  

Now backgammon is the favorite pastime of a weird cult of blanket wearing Satan worshipers?

The most famous exhibit of a blindfold backgammon game held in 1977 in the private room of the New York restaurant 21. The players were the blindfolded backgammon master and author Paul Magriel also known as X-22 and actor, writer and sport journalist George Plimpton, who played the game with his eyes wide open. Despite Plimpton’s sensory advantage, Paul Magriel won the game.