Play65 Team is currently topping the elite division of the Danish Backgammon League, one of the strongest backgammon leagues in the world and the habitat of many world champions. The Play65 Team have outplayed the very strong Nemo team, consists of backgammon champions such as Mads Andersen, Morten Lassen, Katja Spillum and random guests like Bob Wachtel and Gustav Hansen.

The Play65 Team, also known as the Mama Boyz, were gathered about two years ago, consists of Steen Grønbech, Karsten Bredahl, Michael K. Larsen and others, and it has been representing our online backgammon room in several local and international tournaments including the two recent Nordic Open events, and in one of them even won two team events.

Backgammon Kingdom of Denmark 

The Danish Backgammon Federation is one of the most well-organized and devoted backgammon associations worldwide. Its established leagues system is probably the main reasons for the plenitude of Dane players in backgammon tournaments. The DBgF, started out in 1987 as a small backgammon club in Copenhagen, now has more than 100 branches in the small Nordic country, many of them holding weekly tournaments on top of special annual events.

The Danish Backgammon Federation leagues system includes three hierarchical regional divisions and one elite division, with 12 teams of 8-16 players each. Every team gets to play against all other teams in its division twice a year. The winning teams climb up the ladder and the less successful ones drop to a lower division.

Dane backgammon pro Steen Grønbech, who led the Play65 Team in several backgammon tournaments in the last couple of years, is currently on the top of the WSOB Race, preceded only by WSOB Cannes 2009 champion, Salamzy Najibullah, and followed by backgammon giants such as Falafel Natanzon (fourth place), Sander Lylloff (fifth), and even the new world backgammon champion, Masayuki Mochizuki (nineteenth).

Steen Grønbech, who finished third at the World Series of Backgammon Cannes Championship and championed the Second Chance competition, still has a gap of 22 points separating him from the top spot and the adjunct WSOB Gold Cube, a gap that can be closed or at least minimized at the next World Series of Backgammon event, WSOB Prague, scheduled to begin on September 16th.

About Play65 Team

Play65 Team is a group of four leading backgammon players of Denmark, who represent the backgammon website in several events, most recently at the Play65 21st Nordic Open in Denmark. Last year, the group has made Play65 very proud by winning the WSOB 20th Nordic Open Team Event.

Play65 is happy to congratulate Masayuki "Mochy" Mochizuki for winning the 2009 World Backgammon Championship final, held yesterday at the Fairmont Hotel in Monte Carlo, after defeating reigning champion, Lars Trabolt of Denmark in a 25-points match. Mochy, who is also one of Play65’s backgammon bot busters, is the first Japanese champion in the history of the world backgammon championships, and probably one of the youngest players (born in 1979) to achieve this impressive title.

Mochy, carrying Play65 on his back

A rare session of blindfold backgammon was played last night during the Monte Carlo World Backgammon Championship between Falafel and Sander Lylloff, two backgammon masters (no. 1 and 4 in the latest Giants of Backgammon list) who never reject an offer to make things interesting. The backgammon game was physically performed by two other players, who rolled the dice, informed on the outcome and moved the checkers according to Falafel and Sander’s orders. The game went quite well, say spectators; unofficially, it was Falafel stepped out as a winner, Snowie evaluation is required to determine the real winner.

 World Backgammon Championship Finals

 It is the last day of the 34th Monte Carlo World Backgammon Championship, and the championship final is taking place right now, and in a few hours we will be able to tell whether the Japanese player, who was born as Masayuki Mochizuki but mostly known as Mochy, is going to win his first world title, or if Dane Lars Trabolt will reclaim his 2008 world backgammon championship. The champion will take home a check on €62,280, while his runner up will do with €20,760.

The two backgammon pros arrived to the final after beating less experienced players in the semi finals; Mochy outplayed 23-21 a French man called Phillippe Lecomte and Trabolt defeated Roland Herrera of the UK 21-21 after the Crawford rule, both in front of cheering crowds that was thrilled to see that after all, skill bested luck in backgammon.

who said backgammon is not a spectators’ sport? 2008 World Backgammon Champion at the semi finals

Last Monte Carlo World Backgammon Championship?

The general air of disappointment surrounding the event in the last few years, imply that it might be the last year the World Backgammon Championship is held in Monte Carlo in the current format. Rumors say that the next world championship might take place in Las Vegas, probably under a brand new direction.

Probably not, neither can it cure AIDS, Nevertheless, backgammon can, in some roundabout way, promote co-existence between Arab and Jewish children in Israel and treat African HIV carriers.

One to One Children’s Fund had hosted its 9th annual Omar Sharif One to One backgammon and poker charity tournament on the 10th of May in Sketch Restaurant, London in the company of many local celebrities including Take That’s Mark Owen, Radio 1 DJ Colin Murray, Guy Ritchie’s favorite actor Jason Flemyng (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch) and others. Each participant paid £365 entry fees (the cost of £1 donation a day), while non playing spectators paid only £100 for the company and the champagne and gourmet finger foods.

At the end of the day, the backgammon/poker tournament raised £100,000, which will be split between the Middle East projects, designed to bring closer children of three religions in Israel, and the Africa projects, that provide medical treatment to kids with HIV or AIDS.

Play65 Nordic Open was opened on Thursday, April 9 with about 100 players at the Main Division and about 170 more who came all the way to the pastorally city of Helsingor, Denmark to play the Novice, Beginners and Intermediate divisions.

This year’s, 21st Nordic Open backgammon tournament is sponsored by online backgammon room Play65 and organized as usual by the Danish Backgammon Federation, who do it voluntarily. The backgammon site’s presence is, then, very noticeable. On top of the players and staff uniform – Play65 Nordic Open T-shirts – Play65 has representatives in the consolation flight and at the main championship.

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.

The last stop of this year World Series of Backgammon is going on since Thursday, July 17 at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes, France. The final table is due for today and the 2007-8 WSOB final table, with 16 players – 8 of them are the highest ranked players in the series and the 8 are online qualifiers including 3 who won on Play65 tournaments - is scheduled for tomorrow.

Similar to the Monte Carlo World Backgammon Championship, and apparently any other international backgammon tournament, the Dane people stood out above the jumble of nations and languages with backgammon stars such as Lars Trabolt (straight from Monte Carlo where he was crowned World Champion) and Gus Hansen (who arrived from a poker tourney in Las Vegas directly to the quarter finals), Pia Jeppesen (who beat her American counterparts in a row and dropped out of the competition at the quarter finals, following her loss to Gus Hansen, whom she had to pleasure to face, for the first time in her career) and Kenny Nissen (head of the Dansk Backgammon Forbund, the Denish Backgammon Federation). However, despite the Danish superiority, the Danish team did not win the annual Nations Cup. Germany team, headed by Gots, took the trophy to their homeland.

Today, the semi-finals are about to take place. Unfortunately, Falafel Natanzon is out of the competition. After losing to Jakob Holdt-Simonsen on the first round and moving to the Consolation, our man at the Riviera Cup was defeated, again by Holdt-Simonsen, at the 7th round. Yet, he left us with pictures of him playing against Gus Hansen and wearing Play65 cup.

Gus Hansen vs. Falafel Natanzon at the WSOB Riviera Cup

As for now, the competition lies between Robert Lindbom of Sweden who will battle against American Robert Koca and Gus Hansen who will be playing English Nicky Check.

The 33rd annual World Backgammon Championship ended up yesterday at the Fairmount Hotel in Monaco, Monte Carlo. The new World Backgammon Championship is Lars Trabolt of Denmark, who beat Portuguese Mario Sequieira 25-12 in the 25-point final match.

Full details, including personal experience of Falafel, Play65 blog correspondent (and number 4 at the Super Jackpot!) at the prestigious backgammon event, will be published soon. In the meantime, some pictures:

 Lars Trabolt, the 2008 World Backgammon Champion lifts the trophy and his 1 year old daughter

 The Japanese players leaving the trophies ceremony wearing traditional customs

 Play65 protects players from the blazing Monte Carlo sun

Here is a story that happened in a live backgammon tournament that cannot take place when playing online: 

A backgammon player named Badri Tsertsvadze got caught last week at the final day of the Partouche Gammon Tour in France with a crooked dice. The dice was found missing the number 2 but with extra pair of 5s. Needless to mention how this supposedly slight modification changes the player’s possibilities and opens him an entirely new world of good rolls. So the alleged crook was taken to the police by the Partouche Casino Security where he was charged with attempted fraud and another court discussion in his case was set to December. 

This attempt fraud story raises more questions: is it possible that the guy was playing with the wonder dice in other tournaments (including ones where he made some respectable achievements such as the 1st place at the French Open Masters, Last Chance winning at the 19th City Of Venice International Backgammon Tournament, among others)? And if so, which backgammon association can deal with this and protect the players from this kind of abuse? 

Therefore, Eric Guedj, the director of the PartoucheGammon Tour, decided to take advantage of this unpleasant circumstance and to invite his colleagues to form a new, stronger backgammon body, who will keep up his promise of fair and honest play in all backgammon tournaments. 

When playing backgammon online, things are not always quite so clean. Online players can do terrible things to one another, from calling out names to disconnecting right before losing, but at least you can be certain that the dice won’t be manipulated by your opponent.

crooked dice cooked rice