As long as the World Cup 2010 goes on, Play65 continues to give away the special backgammon bonus – 40% on up to $150 deposit, using the bonus code "wc2010" - we will keep on trying to find connections between backgammon and soccer (or football).

A recent finding is the fact that soccer, like backgammon, has bots. Watch them play:

While backgammon bots constantly beat world-class players (and a primitive one even defeated the just crowned world champion Luigi Villa in 1979), in fact, no backgammon champ can do without them, the soccer playing robots still cannot fill the real players shoes, literally. Their developers, however, set their hopes high for winning the 2050 World Cup, reports the Guardian from the ongoing RoboCup in Singapore.

So gamblers, which has bigger odds: humanoids winning the World Cup or backgammon played at the Olympic Games?

Bob Wachtel Interview

Backgammon giant and Play65 bots buster Robert (Bob) Wachtel has been interviewed on Phil Simborg site, and shared additional information on top of those shared in his 2009 Play65 interview; his dream backgammon tournament (one match a day, a simple consolation tournament, both single-elimination, in a warm and exotic location), his view of today’s backgammon comparing to the pre-bots era (“like the difference between reading a story that that you know the ending to and one that you don’t, or perhaps like reading a novel and reading the Cliff’s Notes to it.”), his unique philosophical beliefs (a dogmatic atheist and anti-tribalist) and his strange fascination with Doris Duke death.

New on Play65 backgammon platform: from now, you can add avatars to your personal profile and let your opponents whether you are a shark or a pigeon, a frog or a gorilla. Play65 offers selection of about 15 original avatars you can upload to your profile, simply by right clicking Setting. Of course, if you do not want to play a backgammon game when both opponents are wearing the same avatar, you can change an avatar temporarily or permanently.

Play65 also gets ready to the World Cup that starts tomorrow with a special backgammon bonus (40% up to $150, only during the WC period), and a special tournament that will take place right before the final.

Play65 offers special 40% bonus for the World Cup period (11/6 – 11/7). All you need to do is make a deposit and insert the bonus code "wc2010". Play65 World Cup bonus is limited to a maximum of 150 (in any currency) and to one bonus per account.

More on Backgammon and Football (or Soccer)

Play65 World Cup Bonus is not the first crossroad of backgammon and football.

- Backgammon and football have both been played on Lost, along with ping pong, poker, tic-tac-toe and other sports and board games, but none of them has received such free publicity as backgammon and its parent game the ancient Egyptian Senet.

- Play65 once sponsored an Israeli fifth league football club, Hapoel play65 Kiryat Shalom, planned to be the first interactive football team in history, the first to be managed entirely by its fans via online social networks.

- Play65 also sponsored a charity soccer match for the Israeli Foundation for Medicine Funding back in 2008.

- Two world-class backgammon experts, Frank Frigo and Chuck Bower, have developed a computer software called Zeus, designed to analyze American football games the same way backgammon bots such as Snowie and GNU analyze backgammon matches.

- The Green Bay Packers keep a backgammon table in their locker room, what turned backgammon automatically into the team’s #1 pastime, at least for the present season.

- For Marc Olsen, the a midfielder for Denmark 1st Division, backgammon is not just a favorite pastime, as he already published a backgammon book and joined the celebrated Danish team at the Denmark vs. the World backgammon match held at the last Nordic Open.

Mary Hickey, the winner of Play65 US Open satellites, is the second US Backgammon Open Champion. After beating backgammon giant Falafel 7-6 at the Play65 satellites final, Hickey, also known as Mamabear64, fought Dorn Bishop at the 17-point US Open championship final, not minding even a 9-point lagging – and won.

US Open Championship is Mary Hickey’s highest backgammon achievement so far, and it awards her with about $9,000 first prize, free entry to the next World Backgammon Tour event (the Swedish Open, in Stockholm, Sweden on September 2010) and a chance to win over $50000 at the tour grand finale. And it all begun with a $60 Play65 tournament…

The fact the US Open is won for the second time by a woman backgammon player is also worth mentioning. Last year, the US Open backgammon tournament was launched with the winning of Carol Joy Cole, who beat former World Backgammon Champion Joe Russell at the final, and this year - Mary Hickey, who overcame a field of 44 players including some past and present giants (not including the giants she beat on Play65 to free enter the event). My guess is that next year the field will be filled with backgammon giantesses.

Play65 has completed its first successful collaboration with Backgammon in London, the largest backgammon club in London and is heading up for the next one.

Backgammon in London tournament

Play65 and Backgammon in London first joint event held on 4th May 4th, with Play65 contributing extra £200 to the total prize fund, which grew up to a sum of £2869 that was shared between the winners of the evening Swiss tournaments, knockouts and jackpots ( while the small time winners were awarded with Play65 backgammon boards).

Sean Williams (?) playing backgammon on Play65 board

The next backgammon tournament in the series will be held, again, on the first Tuesday of the next month, on 1 June at the Lockside Lounge on Camden, starting at 18:00 with Swiss tournaments and continuing with knockouts for latecomers and the traditional "Camden auction", Backgammon in London answer to Play65’s online backgammon satellites.

Play65 US Open final qualifier held today on 20:00 Pacific Time after more than one week of sub qualifiers. And the winner, who earned $600 entry to the 2nd US Open Backgammon Championship and 4 nights accommodation in San Francisco, is no other than Mary Hickey.

Also known as Mamabear, Mary Hickey is one of the most outstanding women in backgammon in the US. She has been playing backgammon for over 20 years, writing series of backgammon columns and winning the ABT Ohio Masters Championship for at least four times during the last decade. To win Play65 US Open qualifier, Hickey had battled with the undefeatable Falafel, also known as Matvey Natanzon, but eventually beat him 7-6.

The 1st US Backgammon Open, held last year in Arlington, Virginia, was won by one of the top female players – Carol Joy Cole, who is also a backgammon club director, backgammon magazine editor and supplier of backgammon equipment. This year, the US Open is part of the American Backgammon Tour (ABT) and the World Backgammon Tour (WBGT), so the winner would accumulate ABT points as well as a free entry to the next stop in the 6-stops tour - the Swedish Open on September – where a final $50,000 prize pool is expected. .

Play65 Reload Bonus

One promotion ends and another begins – load your Play65 real money account until 15/52010, use the coupon code: reload50, and get a 50% bonus.

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…

New backgammon tournaments on Play65 – private tournaments, created by you. On Play65 private tournaments (Sit n’ Go/Private at the game lobby), you set the time, the date, the buy-in and the prize; you also invite the players of your choice, by sending them entry passwords (via Play65 backgammon community or any other online or offline communication tool).

And most importantly. Play65 private tournaments allow you, the tournament creators, to earn extra money. Yes, you earn 5% of the prize pool from EVERY private tournament you create.

Play65 - US Backgammon Open Qualifiers

Play65 first collaboration with the American Backgammon Tour and second collaboration with the World Backgammon Tour (after the Nordic Open qualifiers) sends you to San Francisco, where the second ever US Open will take place, between May 13 and 16, 2010 with expected prize pool of $50000.

Play65 US Open sub-qualifiers will start tomorrow, Friday April 23 at 20:00 PST (03:00 GMT) and would run everyday, at the same time, until Sunday May 2 with entry fees of $10 and prizes of $60 entry coupons to the final. The final qualifier will take place on Monday, May 3rd at 20:00 PST. Entry fee: $60 and first prize is $1000 prize package includes $600 entry to the US Open backgammon tournament and four days accommodation in San Francisco.

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.

Backgammon world champion and Play65 bot buster Masayuki Mochizuki (aka Mochy) had replaced Matvey Natanzon (Falafel), another one of Play65 backgammon programs detectors, at the top of the Giants of Backgammon list for 2009.

Mochy represents the young, analytic, computer-oriented generation in backgammon. At only 31, he has managed to attend dozens of international backgammon tournaments (and win some of them, including the last Monte Carlo world championship), read all recommended backgammon books, and practice backgammon daily, mostly on online backgammon servers, such as Play65 for example. In between backgammon tournaments, Mochy teaches schoolchildren in Japan about the wonders of math using backgammon, obviously.

Falafel, then, had dropped one place to number 2, as his giants of backgammon runner-up predecessor, Nack Ballard, dropped lower to number 6. The third place, formerly taken by Francois Tardieu, is now taken by Neil Kazaross, formerly number 5. Sander Lylloff remains at number 5, and on number 7 Stick Rice makes a fresh new entry straight from #63. Lars Trabolt, World Backgammon Champion for 2008, progresses to #8, and Michihito Kageyama (aka Michi) progresses to #9 from the 35 position. Play65 third bot buster, Robert (Bob) Wachtel goes down from #9 to #10, and closes the top ten backgammon giants list for 2009.

Falafel, Backgammon Giant #2