World
Backgammon
Association

Changes have been made to the yearly tournament on the beautiful and sunny Spanish island of Mallorca.

New dates: The tournament has been moved to May 2025, from 13th  to 18th, during the orange blossom season. 

The number of breaks during a match has been changed.

Breaks are now added to the time bank of each player when a clock is in use. Clocks are NOT to be stopped during the breaks and the time will be running on the player on break. Please check General Rules section for the updates.

Changes have been made in the section of rolling dice and cube action in situations with and without cube.

WBA Events in 2016 are in accordance with BMAB Partnership Program.

Recording is allowed. Matches of the players wanting to be rated and ranked for BMAB will be accepted as such in accordance with the BMAB rules.

The tournaments in Munich, Köln, Portugal, Frankfurt and Prague will be BMAB labelled.

Axel Reichert, a software programmer and analytic backgammon player from Munich, has analyzed several pip-counting methods and developed a few of them for a more simple but efficient use during matches.

So everyone knows backgammon, played with 2 dice. But who knows and enjoys SassanGammon, the variation played with 3 dice?

In order to meet Falafel, the highest ranked backgammon player in the world, I took a Greyhound bus to Atlantic City, and then hopped a jitney to the Borgata Hotel. Falafel’s real name is Matvey Natanzon, but no one calls him that, not even his mother, who calls him Mike, the name that he adopted when they emigrated from Israel to Buffalo—one leg in a long journey that began in Soviet Russia. Now even Falafel calls himself Falafel...

While the passing of Matvey Mike Natanzon aka "Falafel" has got the entire backgammon community mourning, his Japanese friend and backgammon Giant Michihito Michi" Kageyama has written a wonderful tribute to the late hero.

The Anniversary Tournament of ISTAVDER in Istanbul (Turkey) is a must attend in terms of space, equipment, organisation and format. It has been attracting more and more players in the history of is existence.

A new variation of modern backgammon has been invented: NoCrawGammon.

21st March is "World Backgammon Day"

For over 10 years, we have been encouraging the backgammon community to celebrate the World Backgammon Day by gathering, playing, organizing tournaments and enjoying the game, especially on March 21st. An application at UNESCO  for the officialization of this "World Backgammon Day" has been made and is ongoing.