Cash game, center cube.

Should White double? If White doubles, what should Black do?

By convention, most cash games use several auxiliary rules beyond the basic rules of backgammon, intended both to speed up the games and increase the stakes in an exciting way. The most common cash game rules are these:

The Jacoby Rule: You can’t win a gammon unless the cube has been turned. This rule eliminates long, dull games where one side gets a huge early edge and plays for the gammon while leaving the cube in the middle.

Automatic Doubles: If both sides roll the same number to start the game, the cube starts at 2. This rule doubles the stakes in one game out of six. Since weaker players tend to play more cautiously with bigger cubes, this rule strongly favors the better player.

read more…

A few weeks ago Malcolm Davis sadly passed away, in his late 80s. Malcolm was one of the true giants of the game, a top player for more than 40 years, a fixture at practically every major tournament, and a member of the Backgammon Hall of Fame. The capstone of his tournament career came in 1996, when he won the fifth World Cup, defeating Kit Woolsey in a best-of-five 13-point match final.

In many respects Malcolm was well ahead of his time. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when pure play ruled the day, Malcolm was one of a few players who sought a more sensible, balanced approach to the game. His excellent tournament results were for a time dismissed as simply good luck. But when Jellyfish and Snowie arrived on the scene, players began to understand that Malcolm and some other “lucky” players had been on the right track all along.

I always enjoyed running into Malcolm at tournaments. He had a wide range of interests and a ton of good stories to share. (Playing him wasn’t that much fun since he beat me like a drum.) Here are a few stories from Malcolm’s life.

read more…

Stuck indoors in these trying times? Cabin fever starting to close in? Getting uncomfortable watching The Andromeda Strain and too scared to watch the market?

For a change of pace with a backgammon theme, try watch a little-known but unexpectedly charming film called The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner. If you can’t find it on a streaming service, Amazon usually has it in stock. You won’t regret it.

Phillip grew up in England, attended Sherborne School, spent three years as an officer in the British Army, serving in Germany, and finished his education at Lincoln College, Oxford. During those years “Phil” became an excellent Rugby player, representing his county, Cornwall, and capped by the Greyhounds, the Oxford University second fifteen – for those interested he played fullback. Further in that vein he also became an excellent skier, and did in fact live for some years in Switzerland.

Post university Phillip Martyn began to travel, Europe first and then the USA, eventually living in New York City. It was there and then, in the early to mid-1960s, that he (and I) learned backgammon, and swiftly got hooked. Phil struck up a camaraderie with Ted Bassett a smooth and amiable golf and backgammon expert, whose own year divided into segments — Palm Beach, St Moritz, Monte Carlo, Biarritz and the airports between. Phil saw nothing wrong with that and so for the next three decades his lifestyle was set.

read more…

Gino Scalamandre passed away last month at the age of 87. Gino was a member of the very first group of backgammon giants who dominated the game in the 1960s and 1970s, along with players like Tim Holland, Oswald Jacoby, and Joe Dwek. Gino was a fixture at all the big international tournaments of that era and won many. In the first ‘unofficial’ listing of the world’s best players in a 1972 issue of Harper’s, Gino was securely in the top 10.

read more…

The interview with Paul continues with a discussion of tournaments and tournament strategy.

Zelman: Do you dream of backgammon, do you dream of games in your sleep? Do you ever come home afterwards and sit down and think where you went wrong?

PM: In tournaments sometimes you get knocked out and you just can’t get a certain roll out of your mind. It’s like a nightmare and you just go over and over it.

Zelman: Do you have video equipment to tape all your games when you play people in tournaments?

read more…