In the fall of 1975 Paul Magriel was living in New York and putting the finishing touches on the book he and his wife Renee were writing. The working title was The Complete Book of Backgammon, but it would be changed to simply Backgammon when it finally appeared in November of 1976. Sometime that fall he consented to an interview with Aubrey Zelman, who was creating a new magazine called Backgammon Illustrated. The one and only issue appeared in April, 1976, priced at $1.95.
The highlight of the issue was the interview with Paul, which ran for 18 pages. Paul gave very few interviews for magazines, and what appeared about him in the press was generally brief and uninformative. This interview was very different.
The Zelman interview gave some great insights into how Paul thought about the game at that time, and conveyed a real sense of what talking with Paul was like. Paul would often start a conversation with very brief, sometimes monosyllabic comments. But once the conversation moved to an area where he had real interest, his whole face and manner would change and he’d start talking with enormous energy and enthusiasm. You’ll get a sense of that here, as well as a sense of how exciting the whole backgammon scene was in the mid-1970s.
I’ve broken the interview into two parts because of its length. Part 2 will follow in a couple of weeks. From time to time I’ve added some brief comments in brackets to make Paul’s meaning clearer to a modern player.
Zelman: Do you go to a lot of tournaments?
PM: I go to most of the major ones.
Zelman: What’s the favorite city you’ve been in, since you’ve travelled quite a bit …
PM: I like living in New York. It’s my home base.
Zelman: But to visit …
PM: London.
Zelman: What do you like about London?
PM: I like the hotels, just the general ambiance, of the city. I like the atmosphere, I like the clubs, I like the shops, I like the foods.
Zelman: When you’re not playing backgammon and you’re not a professor, by the way, are you still a professor?
PM: I’ve taken a leave of absence this semester to complete my book. But I resume my teaching activities next summer.
Zelman: What does it feel like when you walk into … do they bug you a little bit about being a backgammon expert?
PM: A little bit; a lot of the students don’t know.
Zelman: They really don’t?
PM: Well, now they know.
Zelman: Do you ever use backgammon in your classes, you know, use it as propositions, things like this?
PM: No. I teach courses in probability …
Zelman: What do you do to relax?
PM: I go to movies. I read a great deal.
Zelman: What kind of books do you read?
PM: I read novels, various things.
Zelman: You read non-fiction, science fiction?
PM: No, I don’t read science fiction.
Zelman: What kind of hobbies do you have, or interests other than backgammon and movies?
PM: Philosophy. I’m going to be writing a book about the psychopathology of compulsive gambling.
Zelman: So you’re going to be coming out with basically two books now?
PM: Well, I’m writing several books on backgammon. I’ve one major book that the New York Times is publishing that’ll be out early in the fall. And then I’ll have a whole series of books coming out, more specialized books on different aspects of the game; and a whole series of backgammon problem books, so I’m writing several different books at one time. It takes a long time to write.
I used to be a chess player, I was New York State [Junior] chess champion; now I don’t play.
Zelman: Do you play bridge?
PM: A little bit, not much. A lot of my friends are world-champion bridge players.
Zelman: Would you say that the bridge players are tremendous backgammon players?
PM: Well, I think there’s a much more powerful relationship between chess and backgammon. Really, the best backgammon players tend to be good chess players, not bridge players. It’s the nature of the game, it’s much more closely related to chess than to bridge.
I mean, in both you need an analytical mind but it’s very much a visual game and that’s why the very best backgammon players in the world are chess players. You have to be able to recognize visual patterns – to see them, to understand how things interrelate, to see how things shape up. There’s a feeling of timing. Backgammon is a visual game, everything’s in front of you. It’s not really a matter of memorization.
Zelman: Do you think Bobby Fischer would be a super backgammon player?
PM: Well. I think that he’d have the potential in a certain sense to be a super backgammon player. Although what’s needed is intellectually sort of the same, psychologically chess and backgammon are very different. Bobby Fischer might be psychologically very ill-suited to the game. Backgammon is a very tough game psychologically, and a lot of very talented, very brilliant chess players, bridge players, and mathematicians are completely unsuited to playing backgammon because they can’t accept the gambling, the luck element of it – which is a very important element.
Zelman: Do you really believe luck does –
PM: Well, you have to have the discipline to withstand a series of bad rolls. You have to be able to deal with the fact that you may be making the right moves and losing. In chess, you make the right moves, you win; in backgammon you make the right moves and the only way it shows up is not directly but on a percentage basis.
Zelman: Do you get frustrated when you make the right moves and you know you’re making them and the rolls just don’t come for you?
PM: Of course. Backgammon is the most frustrating, most vexing of all these games, and the hardest game psychologically to play in that sense. So maybe someone has the right mental facilities for it but you also have to be right for the psychological components of it – which a lot of people aren’t.
Zelman: I tend to agree with you. I find that when you get – when there’s a complete prime in your inner board and you’re sitting and you’re out on the bar and you can’t get in, it’s very frustrating.
PM: Look at it like this – when I go to play in a big international tournament, there’s enough luck that I’m probably not going to win the tournament, even though I’ll often be the top-seeded player. In other words, the matches being as short as they are, it’s sort of an exercise in frustration – I’m going to go and play, and I’ll only have a 10 to 15 to 20% chance of winning. It means I know when I sit down I’m going to lose to somebody who can’t play nearly as well as me. So therefore it’s always continually frustrating.
Zelman: So why if you think you’re going to lose …
PM: I don’t think I’m going to lose any one particular match, but I know during the course of a tournament I may be knocked out at some point by somebody who can’t play nearly as well as I can. So it’s a built-in frustration factor.
Zelman: Even if you get up to the top, even if you’re playing in the semi-finals – a 19-point match?
PM: In a 19-point match …
Zelman: You have more of a chance of winning than in a simple 9-point match.
PM: Right. It makes a big difference how long your match is but I can still lose a 19-point match.
Zelman: Now that we’re getting into backgammon, you’re basically a math professor, this is where you got all your probabilities …
PM: Yes, but again … in Europe I’m referred to as ‘The Computer’ but this whole business about my being a math professor and everything is really totally misleading in the sense that what makes a good player, if you look at it, is not mathematics. Contrary to popular opinion, when the best players play, they don’t sit there calculating odds at all. I never sit there calculating probabilities explicitly and doing arithmetic in my head. Since I am a mathematician, this is my trade, but that plays virtually no part whatsoever in making a good backgammon player.
Zelman: I know it’s automatic now, but if you had to leave a man open say on your 4-point or your 5-point, you don’t figure a 37% chance … I’m just throwing figures around …
PM: No. There are a few basic odds which everybody can learn very easily, which aren’t very difficult. Beyond that, there’s no explicit calculation.
Just in terms of leaving shots, there’s always so many more things involved in the position than directly counting the number of shots. People who just try and rely on counting the number of shots never get anywhere in backgammon, will never even get close to the top level. The top-level players, most of them hardly ever sit there counting shots, although of course they are aware of the basic probabilities but they’re thinking about the tactics and the structure of the game and the strategy, and this is what counts.
The game is a much more subtle, difficult, intricate game than people can possibly believe. The difficulty comes not in explicit calculation of odds; it comes, like chess, in the understanding and recognition of the strategy. In chess there’s no calculating of odds, yet that’s a very difficult game. Backgammon is an extremely misleading game in the sense that it seems a lot simpler than it is.
The fact that there’s the dice element masks the deep subtlety, the complexity, the beauty of the underlying strategy. There’s so much more going on beneath the surface than people usually can possibly imagine. All different levels. People at all levels pretty much think they know all there is to know, they brush up a little about odds when they’re just a million miles away from understanding. But the dice disguise the fact that it’s a game of position and strategy.
Zelman: Where did you get into … who taught you to play backgammon?
PM: Well, I sort of taught myself. I saw people playing and I got interested because I’ve always liked to play games.
Zelman: How long ago was this?
PM: Well, when I was a kid I played chess. I was New York State [Junior] Chess Champion. I started playing [backgammon] about six years ago. I was in a coffee shop down in the village and I got fascinated and started learning. It was a natural thing because it’s a visual game. I’m in probability theory and you use probabilities although not directly. It was a natural game because I like gambling. I like games of chance. There’s all these reasons why it was a natural game for me.
Zelman: Did you buy any books on the game? Basically, what did you do to learn?
PM: I had to play with better players, and watch better players and study and think about what they were doing and why they were trying to do it and think about what’s going on, and so I did that. And I’ve played all the best players in the world, long head-to-head sessions. That’s how I learned to play.
Zelman: At what point did you get involved in the backgammon scene?
PM: Well, maybe a year or a year and a half after I learned to play, I went to my first backgammon tournament.
Zelman: What was it like, playing in your first tournament?
PM: When I played in my first tournament, I was already a good player. I was one of the top players in the tournament. The second international tournament I ever played in I won.
Zelman: But before you’d made an attempt on a championship, why would these good players want to sit down and play with you?
PM: Well, you play for money because people enjoy a good game. And I wanted to play because I wanted to learn. So I played with the best players. It’s a very hard game to learn because you get very little feedback from your mistakes.
Zelman: How did you place in your first tournament?
PM: In my first tournament, I got through my first three rounds or so and then I got beaten.
Zelman: Was that frustrating?
PM: Well, it’s always frustrating. It’s still frustrating when I lose.
Zelman: Your first outing, when you lost, what did you actually go through then? Did you really say, “Gee, why did I come?”
PM: No, because I was having a good time, and it was exciting, and I didn’t really expect to win the first tournament I played in. Even now, I think I’m going to win, I psych myself up to win, but realistically I can’t be sure.
Zelman: But there’s more pressure now, because you are Paul Magriel. People are looking for you. Before you were just “Paul” and you came in and played. There wasn’t so much pressure and you could enjoy yourself much more.
PM: No, I like playing under pressure. It’s part of my nature. The more pressure on me the more I like playing. When I get to the finals, I like playing when there’s a lot of tension, a lot of pressure. I play a lot better and I enjoy doing that.
Zelman: Where did you go from that point? When did things start to turn around for you? Was it when you started to win quite often, after that first match?
PM: I was a winner from the time I began really playing, but the second tournament I ever played in was a big international tournament with all the best players in the world. I won that one. [St. Maarten, 1971]
Zelman: But why did you start to win?
PM: Well, I played, I thought about the game, I played, I watched – and I became a very good player.
Zelman: Who were some of the people whom you defeated in the meantime for you to achieve this position in the backgammon field?
PM: You mean the people I watched? Walter Cooke, Claude Beer, Gino Scalamandre, Ralph Chafetz, Tobias Stone – these are people I used to watch.
Zelman: Then you eventually played against them – some people say they don’t think there’s much concentration – they feel backgammon is a relatively simple game. How do you feel on that point?
PM: I’ve already said backgammon is very misleading. It’s hardly a simple game at all. The complexity certainly rivals, I believe, that of chess or bridge. There’s a lot more to the game than people can possibly imagine. There are all sorts of different levels of ability and skill. You keep on getting better and better but people just don’t recognize that there are all different levels, these different levels of play. So it’s a very subtle, very profound game. But it appears to be a very, very simple game, which is part of the fascination of it.
As for concentration, one of the advantages of the game, what makes the game fun, is that the game goes fast. It’s not like chess, where you sit there and ponder and ponder for hours. The game goes very fast, but if you think there’s no concentration, you should watch the finals of the major tournaments.
Zelman: At what point do you feel, or did someone come up and say “You know, he’s going to be a really great backgammon player. Just the way he handles …”
PM: When I started beating everybody. In the beginning when I was learning the game people thought I was just lucky. But after a while, people began realizing that I knew what I was doing.
Zelman: I understand you give lessons also. If I called you up on the phone and said “Mr. Paul Magriel, I’d like a lesson in backgammon”, what would you charge me?
PM: Well, it depends where it is and whether it’s at a tournament. Basically, what I charge now is – if it’s in New York, I charge $500 for five two-hour lessons. [These were 1975 dollars, which would be the equivalent of about $2000 today.] Plus that I travel around. I go to people’s homes in different places in the country and I spend a week there. It depends on the circumstances; it’ll cost two or three thousand dollars for a week.
Also one of the main things I do now is represent the Doral Hotel in Florida as their official touring pro. I’m going to be down there over this Christmas, for example. There’s a whole series; I give lectures every day and demonstrations.
Zelman: What if someone wants to continue in a private lesson? Do you charge them $500?
PM: When I’m at the Doral I’m working for the Doral and basically everything I do the Doral pays for. Everything for the guests of the Doral is free. But I officially represent them in tournaments around the world.
Zelman: Do you have a protégé? Are you training anyone to be your successor? I know you’re only 29, but is there someone you feel is upcoming whom you’re teaching?
PM: Yes, I’ve trained a lot of good players. People who take lessons range from virtual beginners to [real] players. Several players who are top seeded players in the world actually come to me for lessons. But I won’t tell you who they are.
Zelman: Of course not. I’m just talking in general. Is there someone, a nice young boy whom you’re friendly with and you’ve been grooming?
PM: Yes, there are several people. Lynn Goldsmith, who I consider in many ways the best woman player in the world, I helped her. There are lots of people, I don’t want to embarrass them by mentioning names, but a lot of the top players now have studied with me at one point or another. So yes, I definitely have protégés.
Zelman: Are there things you wouldn’t teach or ‘expose’ in order to protect yourself?
PM: No. I have a different view about this than other top players, and they sometimes chastise me for giving too much away, teaching too much. But my view of the game is there’s so much to the game and it’s so profound that even when I try and teach, there’s so much more that I know that can’t be taught that I’m not worried about “giving away the secrets”.
It’s not like there’s just a few secrets, there’s a lot of different things in the game. There’s not just like one or two secrets which I therefore have to protect and keep to myself. So I’m not afraid to teach and tell what I know. Just by teaching doesn’t mean that someone’s automatically as good as me because there’s so much to the game.
Zelman: Do you think you’re the best player in the world today?
PM: In a sense this is a loaded question. Let me make an analogy with something else. I’m a math professor and I had a survey of the graduate math departments in the country; and I asked each one to rate other departments and also to rate themselves. Every graduate math department in the United States that was in the top hundred rated themselves in the top 10! Every math department that was in the top 10 rated themselves flatly number one.
Fortunately, much of the same situation pertains in backgammon. In other words, to be good you have to be competitive, you have to try, you have to want to be the best. Now there are some ratings. In tournaments there are seedings of players which are more or less consistent. On that basis, the top seeded player is certainly always going to be among the top two or three seeded players in the world.
Zelman: Are you seeded number one everywhere you go?
PM: Not everywhere. Occasionally I’m seeded number two, sometimes I’m even number three. In other words there’s a handful of players who have some legitimate claim to being the best player in the world.
Zelman: Who would you name on your level?
PM: Stan Tomchin, Chuck Papazian, Philip Martyn (he’s a European player), Claude Beer, Joe Dwek, he’s a very fine player. Tim Holland and Barclay Cooke – there are a lot of other excellent players.
Zelman: Insofar as the backgammon scene in tournaments, is there a particular form of play that’s pretty popular? Do people work on a middle or a backgame?
PM: Well, there are different aspects of the game. The game goes through different stages, and if you want to play well, you have to know how to handle every aspect.
Zelman: What do you think is your strongest point of the game? Is it your backgame or … What do you feel most comfortable in, is it a running game right away or is it staying right in back …?
PM: In tournaments I play players who are usually weaker, so I try and complicate the game, so I play a complicated middle game.
Zelman: But against some of the players that you’ve mentioned – if you were playing with them, would you go into a backgame and wait?
PM: Every game depends on the circumstances. The trick is to know when to go into a backgame and when not to go into a backgame. That’s the trick, to know whether to play an attacking game or running game or priming game, or when to go which way. That’s where a lot of the skill of the game is, knowing which type of strategy to do and tactically how to carry it out. These things can change. The dice dictate certain things and certain other things are out of your control, but you have to know what you’re trying to do. Strategically it is very hard.
Zelman: For a person who’s just learned the game, should he learn to play a backgame right away? Shouldn’t he start learning the basics?
PM: Well, the backgame is a fascinating part of the game.
Zelman: If you were going to tell someone, say someone who’s been playing for a year, what would you tell them to concentrate on? Would you tell them to play a middle game, or to concentrate and develop a backgame?
PM: With most people I wouldn’t start with a backgame. I’d go into all sorts of basic things that most people don’t know rather than going into the fine points of backgames.
Zelman: I find that in all backgammon sets that are sold there are also instructions for opening moves. They tell you to run immediately with 6-3 or 6-4, to make your 3-point with 5-3, make your 5-point with 4-4.
PM: Well, a lot of the moves you’ve just told me are wrong. The things that you’ve just mentioned are not generally accepted. There are options.
Zelman: So basically you feel if someone is learning the game they shouldn’t really go by the instructions out there. They should pick up a good book, or even your book, and look for other ways of making their opening move.
PM: You have to know not just what the opening move is but the reasons behind that opening move — what it is you’re trying to do at the opening of the game.
Zelman: Are you comfortable playing a backgame?
PM: Yes.
Zelman: You’d go right into it, you wouldn’t hesitate? You’re really comfortable.
PM: I’m comfortable playing backgammon. I try to do what’s right when I play.
Zelman: You don’t feel a little weak with the backgame?
PM: There’s a lot of skill in defending against a backgame and ruining the other person’s timing. If I play somebody like Chuck [Papazian] who’s a master at defending against a backgame, obviously I’m not going to feel as comfortable because I know he’s going to use all these very subtle tricks to try to ruin my timing. If I play an average player, they probably don’t know what to do so I can be more confident. I will have a well-timed backgame and be a favorite. Let me say this: I think this is a common fallacy. The emphasis you’re putting on the backgame is totally misplaced in terms of people learning or in terms of what’s important.
Zelman: Well, people are asking – what is a backgame?
PM: A backgame occurs when you have two points, usually deep in your opponent’s home board, and you want to wait until your opponent comes home and breaks up his position. Then you hit him after he’s weak in defense. That’s the theory behind the backgame and the main thing about the backgame is just to adjust your timing so you hit at a point where he’s defenseless and also when you haven’t been forced previously to ruin your position. There’s still a potential for making a strong inner board – that’s the fundamental concept of a backgame.
The dichotomy between middle game and backgame is really very false. A backgame is one specialized tool, in a sense, of the middle game and as far as learning or understanding the game, it’s usually very much overestimated. I mean there are much more common types of games – I’d say three other basic forms of games. An attacking game, a running game where you race and try to get home, and a priming game where you try to build a prime, a blockade in front of your opponent. Now these are the main types of strategies and by comparison a backgame is a very specialized kind of thing.
Zelman: Who would you consider the best backgame player?
PM: Gino Scalamandre has an enormous skill. All the top players in the world have a deep understanding of the timing, of the issues involved. Gino Scalamandre happens to be particularly adept at playing backgames.
Zelman: I’d like to talk about tournament play a little bit. How do you gear your play for tournaments?
PM: First of all, match play is very, very different from regular money play in terms of how the cube is handled, and even in how you move the pieces, because you’re not playing as if you have a long, long time. You have to get to a definite number of points and this radically affects how you handle the cube. There’s probably more difference to me between match play and money play in backgammon than there is between rubber bridge and duplicate bridge. There’s an enormous difference, a lot more subtlety, a lot more precision on the cube handling.
Zelman: Is there a difference in a 7-point tournament match to a 5-point or a 9-point tournament match?
PM: A very big difference. I have a book at home I’m writing just on match play. Attached to each score there’s a special strategy which is different from each individual other score. If you had a 2-0 or 3-0 or 1-0 lead in a 5-point match, or even a 3-1 lead, each one will actually involve a whole separate strategy. Very few people will realize this, but if you know this it can help your tournament play.
As far as preparing, if you want to be successful in tournaments you have to adjust your play to your opponent’s play. So when I play a weaker player I try to make positions long and complicated and give them as much possibility to go wrong as I can. If I’m playing a very strong player, I have to play very differently. It’s very important to adjust your strategy if you want to try and be successful in these tournaments.
Zelman: So you probably play completely differently in a semi-final match or a final.
PM: Well, it depends who I’m playing.
Zelman: Say I’m an intermediate and I just happened to fluke off, and you’re playing me, there’d be a different approach if you were playing me for a 9-point match.
PM: Say I was playing you in a tournament, you might not believe this but if the opening roll is 6-1 I’d play it like this [13/7 6/5] instead of making my bar-point.
Zelman: But for a more experienced player you’d go grab the bar-point immediately?
PM: For an excellent player, yes.
Zelman: When you’re playing a better player, would you go for your 5-point?
PM: Well, the 5-point is a key point to have.
Zelman: The whole strategy was the 7-point, the bar-point.
PM: That’s sort of changed over the years. There’s been a lot of interaction between the best players and so a lot of these things are sort of realized more or less simultaneously.
Zelman: Do you ever discuss these moves with other players?
PM: Yes, I do. I study the game all the time.
— To be continued —
