The next monthly glorious backgammon tournament will be on February 6th at 21:00 GMT with $15,000 guaranteed prize pool and $4,000 guaranteed first prize. Entry fees are $200 ($185 + $15); satellite tournaments occur daily on 19:00 and 21:00 GMT, and there is a free satellite tournament for Silver and Gold VIP players on January 29th at 18:00.

The first satellite for the Play65/EBGT Grand Finale will be also on February 6th at 18:30 GMT. The winner will win a €1.000 seat for the prestigious backgammon tour’s €25,000 closing event on December 5-7 in Lefkosa, North Cyprus, and all the finalists will be credited with WBA Materpoints. Entry fees are €160 (€150 + €10).

The satellite for the Play65/EBGT first stop - where both the WBA 10th Anniversary and the ISTAVDER 3rd Anniversary (and the opening of the Play65/EBGT season 2011) will be celebrated at the Green Park Hotel Bostanci in Istanbul, Turkey between February 25 and 27 - is on Saturday February 12, 18:30 GMT. Entry fees are only €15.

Also, don’t miss Bob Wachtel’s adventures in Cyprus and in Meribel. In his Cyprus Backgammon Open 3 parts report, you can read about the differences between "modern backgammon", the Euro-American version of the game played with the doubling cube, and the traditional backgammon, played leisurely everywhere in the Middle East and the revival of the Middle Eastern backgammon online and tournament halls. Read about the military bureaucracy the innocent backgammon tourist might face in the divided capital of Cyprus, and about the Turkish conquest of the international backgammon tournament. Plus, you can follow some interesting backgammon positions from the Mochy and Falafel match in the quarterfinals and confront a backgammon sportsmanship dilemma.

About a year ago, when Mary Hickey won the 2nd US Backgammon Open and the Play65 US Backgammon Open qualifier, she said that "It is a highly improbable sequence of events… winning eight matches in a row, not a likely occurrence on any given day or weekend." But, the unlikely occurrence had occurred again, as Mary Hickey won the US Backgammon Open again, in the third anniversary of the WBA/ABT event, held this time in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on January 14-17, 2011.

Play65/EBGT Season 2011 is about to begin. Play65 will host exclusive online qualifiers for each of the perstigious backgammon tour’s stops, plus additional satellites for the €25,000 Grand Finale.

The first Play65/EBGT satellite is scheduled to 12 February at 18:30 GMT. The winner will get free entry to the WBA 10th Anniversary/ISTAVDER 3rd Anniversary Tournament, and the finalists – Play65 VIP Club membership for a month.
Next Play65/EBGT events include the European Pro & Doubles Backgammon Championships in April, Play65/EBGT/ABT Golden Gate Open in May, Portuguese Backgammon Open in June, Georgian Backgammon Open in August, Mallorca Backgammon Challenge in October, Paris Open in October and Cyprus Open in December. Another tournament is expected to take place in September in a yet undecided location. Entry fees and terms will be announced soon.

Play65/EBGT Grand Finale

The Play65/EBGT season will be closed on 5-7 December 2011 with the 24-players, €25,000 Grand Finale in Lefkosa, Cyprus, where the winner will take $15,000. The dates, entry fees and additional details regarding the Grand Finale satellites will be announced soon. What can already be announced is that, for the first time in online backgammon, online qualifiers will gain WBA Masterpoints and will be ranked amongst their offline colleagues at the WBA point race.

Team Play65 also known as "Mama Boyz" has been representing Play65 at the Danish Backgammon Federation tournaments since 2008. 2009 was the team’s championship year, as it ended with their overplaying the team “Nemo” and winning the Danish Team Tournament. For the opening of backgammon tournaments season in Denmark, it is about time you’ll meet the team members.

Karsten Bredahl is Team Play65 captain, backgammon player and teacher, two times Nordic Open champion and the highest rated players in Denmark.

Karsten has been playing at the Danish Backgammon Federation from 1993, and since then he had achieved 55 results, more than any other member, including two Nordic Open championships and four Danish team tournament wins (including the last one with Play65). In 2007, he achieved the highest rating in Denmark, a record that has not been broken yet. On top of playing backgammon, he also teaches the games to students in local backgammon clubs.

Casper Brandenborg aka Scraperband, has been playing backgammon since the mid 1990s, almost exclusively in live events. He had finished second at the 2007 Danish Singles Championship and was part of Team Play65 during the championship year.

Claes Norreen aka Kalibalak (which means "watch out" in Arabic)

Lasse Hjort Madsen

By Karsten Bredahl, Team Play65 Captain

The champions of The Danish Backgammon Team Tournament 2009-10, which finished in March, became (as most players are aware of) the very strong team from the Mama Boyz Club sponsored by Play65: Team Play65.

Team Play65 started the season with 2 defeats (only 2 victories of 8 possible matches) but from round 3 their name were written all over the Team Tournament and after 88 matches to 17 points they ended up with 54 victories and winner of the title as Danish Champions. None of the players on the team had a negativ score, and the topscore of the team (capt. Karsten Bredahl) also became the topscorer of the entire elitedivision with 16 wins (in 21 matches) which was 3 wins more than Mik Larsen, who ended up on 2nd place with 13 wins (in 22 matches).

But last season is long gone by now and during the Summer Lars Chr. Bentzon (aka Busti) made Denmark proud by becoming the 5th Danish World Champion.

Furthermore the next season of team backgammon begins in only 4 weeks so who can remember what happened 6 months ago?!

Now is the time to forget about vacations, work and families. Backgammon is all that matters from now on. The teams in the Danish Team Tournament can look forward to thousands of exiting 17-pointers during the next 6 month! Positions will arise and debates will take place in the Danish forum…

528 of these matches will take place in the elitedivision and the defending champions from Team Play65 will do whatever is in their power to win the title again and make Play65 proud but they are up against the strongest players in the world so it is going to be a tough call and very exciting.

Karsten Bredahl, Team Play65 Captain, continues to look back at the 2009 season in the Danish Backgammon Federation top league. The season, which ended in the team’s championship, started out quite lame:

Round 1:
Team Play65 opened the season real bad, losing 1-3 to Klaps, which is a former two times champion in the Danish Backgammon Team tournament. They are strong players, but the road to victory has to include luck once in a while.
For fun – let’s look at a position where Team P65 member Steen Groenbech is playing the white checkers and leading 14-6/17 holding a 4-cube.

He ends up losing the match without ever entering from the bar. 0,2% backgammon turned into 100%.
Lady luck says ”welcome and have a nice season” to the players from TP65.

Round 2:

Defeat is a lousy excuse for giving up. Next challenge is Team Ladbrokes which is one of the favourites to win the tournament. Now we were ready to get back to even score but unfortunately, we were lucky not to lose 0-4 and ’only’ lost 1-3 again. Now we were -2 with our 2 out of 8 and were second to last in the division.

Round 3 + 4 were a lot better for Team Play65. We won both matches 3-1 against Temple and Hitmen and were back on 0 with 8 victories of 16 matches.

Round 5: Last years champions from Soirée Dansante just beat the world team (including Falafel and Mochy) in an exhibition match in France and showed everybody they were fit for a fight. It turned out to be a match which could go both ways but after 4 long hours the result 2-2 were satisfying for both teams.

Round 6 – Force Majeure: The plan was simple: victory! And the plan became forfilled. But the road to victory is often quite bumpy. Here is a little position from Bredahl’s match:

Bredahl is black, leading 6-5/17 and faced a cube here. He took and won easily after a couple of aces from white. These positions is very easy to calculate over the board and often takes a lot of time to decide.

In this case, the cube seemed a little premature (double blunder) but 2 rolls later black had 3 on the ace and white had 2 on the deuce. Black on roll. Cubeaction? Despite the underdog position (40%), black should still reship the 16-cube for the match. This emphasizes how match play is much more complicated and difficult than money games…

By Karsten Bredahl , Team Play65 captain

Denmark is known as the greatest backgammon nation in the world. Why is that? What’s the secret behind such a great success coming from such a very small nation (+5 million people)?

Let us provide you with the secret! The answer is ”The Danish Backgammon Team Tournament” which is the outspring from organized backgammon over decades.

Every year, 100 teams is fighting a battle all winter long competing to be the best TEAM in Denmark. Backgammon is an individual sport, and making it into a team sport is brillant as it takes the game into a higher level. Now the players are not only meassured on their own results but on the result of the team. Discussion and exchanging theories and knowledge pays off. It is about getting better by helping your team members to get better.

THAT is the true nature of the Danish Team Tournament which occupies more than 600 players every year. 

Denmark Backgammon Divisions

The elite-division is the finest place to play backgammon. Nobody just ’lands’ here after entering the tournament. All theh teams must work their way up the hierarchy by winning lower divisions. Each division has 12 teams playing each other twice during a season (home and away).

A backgammon match includes 4 players on each team. More than 4 players can be connected with the team, but only 4 players can play each time. 22 team matches means 88 boards over a season. Each board is a 17 point match. As you can understand, that is a lot of backgammon before the Champions is crowned. In fact, 3.700 matches in 7-8 divisions are played to 17 points before the last die is thrown and the last checker has been taken off the board. Amazing!

Season 2009-10 is the 20th season of team backgammon in Denmark. Since the beginning in 1991, Denmark has produced four world backgammon champions and many more winning personalities over the years.

Season 2009-10 was the season Team Play65 accomplished the ultimate goal for a team in Denmark, which is winning the elite-division and ending up as Danish Backgammon Champions.

The Danish backgammon players are considered the best players in the world, so if Play65 team won the team championship ofthe Danish Backgammon Federation (DBgF), does that make them the best backgammon players in the world?

Play65 Team won the 2009-2010 Danish Team Backgammon Championship held last Saturday. Play65 Team (also known as the Mama Boyz) won 3-1 against their biggest competitor, DBgF leading Team, Nemo, and grabbed the DM title for the first time since its founding, leaving behind both the current golden medalists (Nemo, now holding the silver medal) and representatives of another online backgammon room (Team Ladbrokes Backgammon, Bronze).

The Danish Backgammon Federation was the organizer of the backgammon team championship, the league games that proceeded the championship and other backgammon events, most notably the international Nordic Open backgammon championship. The Nordic Open started 22 years ago as a local gathering of the lively Scandinavian backgammon scene, is now one of the biggest backgammon events in the world, attracting players from as far as the US and Japan. By the way, qualifiers for the 2010 Nordic Open are taking place at Play65 this week, don’t miss it….

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.

As the Monte Carlo World Backgammon Championship ended, the first event in the third season of the World Series of Backgammon began with the WSOB Cannes, held at the Palm Beach Casino from July 23 until yesterday, when anonymous Najibulla Salamzy of Afghanistan/Germany has surprisingly defeated the favorite, backgammon giant and WSOB team member Falafel Natanzon in the best out of three 7-point matches. Salamzy took home the first €18,000 prize and he will continue to WSOB next event, the European Championships in Prague, the Czech Republic on September 16-20, 2009.

It’s not the winning that counts