The Backgammon Chronicles: A Pro's Adventures on Tour Volume 1 - Softcover

Wachtel, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0989549631 ISBN 13: 9780989549639

Publisher: Coup Classique Press, 2019

Synopsis

The Backgammon Chronicles: A Pro’s Adventures on Tour is a lush, two-volume, full-color cornucopia of gambling stories, character sketches, historical essays and tournament drama that takes the reader on an insider’s odyssey through backgammon’s last whirlwind decade––with its author, one of the game’s elite competitors, as guide.

Introducing you to the game’s stars even as he narrates his clashes with them in a score of exotic venues, Robert Wachtel frames the action against an overview of the events and crises that have defined contemporary backgammon: the advent of the artificial-intelligence programs and their virtual extinction of the game’s traditional role as a gambling recreation; the ecstatic birth and untimely death of online play; the burst of investment and enthusiasm brought to the game by the poker boom; and current trends: the outreach of Western backgammon culture back towards the game’s birthplace, the Middle East; and the efforts of the federations of the major nations to establish a viable global community.

Volume 1 opens in mid-2008, when the formulas that had fueled a worldwide poker boom were being tested in Europe and the Middle East on the internationally more popular and beloved game of backgammon. The scene was intoxicating: games for every stake, from pennies to thousands of dollars, were available 24/7 online, with live tournaments held year-round in lavish resorts, their prize pools fortified by great dollops of money added by casinos, hotels, and assorted gambling platforms. Entrepreneurs––their eyes starry with visions of the sort of high-stakes tours, galas, books, films and TV series that had reaped easy profits for media and gaming concerns in promoting poker––were taking meetings and arranging financing.

The reader will meet the brilliant, quirky characters at the top of the game up close in these pages as Robert faces off against them in tournament play and engages them in a special entertainment of his own device, dubbed by ex-world #1 Mike Natanzon (trade name: Falafel) “The Chronicles.” Chronicles are histories; and so these volumes are aptly named, for they are indeed episodes of the author’s backgammon adventures. But the title has a double meaning: the books are chronicles in Falafel’s sense as well, for the special entertainment mentioned above figures prominently in many of their tales. At a major tournament the author would gather together as many top players as possible and ask them to solve backgammon dilemmas he’d encountered over the board––and often gotten wrong. The format always aroused the experts’ competitive instincts, provoking them to argue, bluster, and challenge one another as they backed their opinions with hefty side bets. A lover of the game could hardly hope for a more exciting experience than watching these sparks fly.

This volume is a travelog as well, for the tournament trail the players followed was well worth photographing: Stockholm; Prague; Copenhagen; Paris; Velden (Austria); Montreux (Switzerland); Oulu (Finland); Oslo; Majorca; North Cyprus; and finally as the volume ends, a freezing outdoor tournament at an altitude of almost 3000 meters in the French Alps amidst the peaks overlooking the ski village of Meribel!

About this title

About the Author

Currently ranked world #11 on the peer-rated survey "The Giants of Backgammon" and Grandmaster 2nd class by the Backgammon Masters Awarding Body (BMAB), Robert Wachtel has been one of the game's elite players for the last 40 years. A chess master, Doctor of Philosophy and an ex-options trader, he is the author of two prior backgammon books, In the Game until the End (1993) and In the Game until the End Vol. II (2014), and more than 40 journal articles. Robert was the editor of the US Backgammon Federation's flagship magazine, PrimeTime Backgammon, from 2011 to 2019. He is the author of The Language of Backgammon: A Player's Dictionary, a companion volume to The Backgammon Chronicles.

From the Back Cover

The game of backgammon has beguiled players of many lands and cultures for more than three millennia. Its unique luck/skill structure--combined with the more recent addition of the doubling cube--generates breathtaking accidents, outrageous turnabouts, and amazing escapes. Its mastery demands preternatural calm: the ability, while buffeted by those hurricanes of chance, to serenely pursue deep strategies and execute a myriad of tactical improvisations.

One would expect a sport this vivid and dramatic to have generated a great library of lore. Like that of other beloved competitions--baseball, soccer, chess, poker, football, tennis--its literature should paint indelible portraits of its heroes and rogues; contain collections, with generations of commentary, of its immortal battles; include passionate debates over its ethics and rules; and most of all, tell us stories. It is stories that teach people the history and spirit of a sport, and that make fans of them for life, whether they are destined to become competitors themselves or remain mere bleacher bums.

But the literature of backgammon, since the bad old days of the 70s, when a few of the game's polished hustlers offered the public a peek into their demimonde, has mostly consisted of a Spartan diet of manuals, quiz sets, and textbooks. Despite the best intentions of federations and organizers, the scene has grown ever less welcoming to the amateur, the newcomer.

This lush, two-volume, full-color cornucopia of essays, stories, and adventures--The Backgammon Chronicles--addresses that long-standing narrative deficit by taking the reader on an insider's odyssey through backgammon's last whirlwind decade--with its author, one of the game's elite competitors, as guide.

Introducing you to the game's stars even as he narrates his clashes with them in a score of exotic venues, Robert Wachtel frames the action against an overview of the trends and crises that have defined contemporary backgammon: the advent of AI programs and their virtual extinction of the game's traditional role as a gambling recreation; the burst of investment and enthusiasm catalyzed by the poker boom; the ecstatic birth and untimely death of online play; and current trends: the outreach of "modern" Western backgammon back towards the game's birthplace, the Middle East; and the efforts of the federations of the major nations to establish a viable global community.

Edition details

• Publisher: Coup Classique Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0989549631
• ISBN 13: 9780989549639
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226