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

Play65 is launching a new series of free online backgammon tournaments on Wednesday nights (at 18:00 and then again at 21:00 GMT) with real money prizes. In both free-rolls, the entry is free of charge; the stars you accumulate in every real money backgammon game you play on Play65 can be used as entry fee, and you can win cash prizes from $10 to $300.

If you want to spend 3000 stars, you can enter the $300 freeroll backgammon tournament at 18:00 GMT. The $300 prize pool will be split between only eight players:
1st prize: $150
2nd prize: $60
3rd & 4th prize: $10

For 5000 of your stars, you can enroll the $600 freeroll at 21:00 GMT. The $600 prize pool will be allocated to the top eight winners in this manner:
1st prize: $300
2nd prize: $100
3rd & 4th: $10

Don’t forget that 500 stars and 1000 stars freerolls take place everyday on Play65 at 05:00 and 17:00 GMT.

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 invites you to qualify for all three flights in 2010 Nordic Open – championship, advanced and intermediate.

All qualifiers start today, March 8, and will go on until March 12. The winners of the championship and advanced qualifiers would be rewarded with a free entry to the final, on March 13, where the first prize is a prize package to the 22nd Nordic Open backgammon tournament that will take place on Copenhagen, Denmark from April 1 to April 5. A second round of Play65 Nordic Open qualifiers will begin on March 15 and end with a final on March 20.

Play65 in now on your TV! (if you live in Israel and subscribed to Hot digital services – Mars* 226 on the converter)

*Mars is Hebrew for Gammon, a game that ends with the losing player not bearing off any of his checkers. The term is originally from Turkish, where it means something like shocking someone to speechlessness. Traditionally, in Sheshbesh and in Tavla, the two backgammon variations common in Israel and Turkey, there is not backgammon in the meaning of triple game, nor there is a doubling cube, so gammon is the highest possible score.

What else there is on TV anyway?

1.

Play65 closes February with a large backgammon tournament – Backgammon Arena €4000 on February 28th, 2010 20:00 GMT. Entry fees are €45, and there are satellites everyday 18:30 and 21:30*. Winner gets €1200!

* For free entry to the daily satellites, deposit $€₤100 and enter the coupon code: BGARENA

2.

Should backgammon be in the Olympics? The instinctive answer would be no, but if curling is sports, and ESPN dared to suggest to include poker among the Olympic Games, we can contemplate the idea as well.

Most of the poker players who discussed this half-amused notion with the ESPN columnist, agreed that poker does not belong to the Olympics. Poker, like backgammon, is not really a physical activity, it involves some amount of luck, and its skill element finds expression only in the long run - after a week long tournaments marathon or its 27-points match backgammon equivalent.

Poker author Nolan Dalla thinks otherwise:

"I have just two words for anyone opposed to poker as an Olympic sport: synchronized swimming."

athletes in action