A tournament not to be missed by any speed loving backgammon player: The only purely SpeedGammon tournament in the world!

From 03 to 08 October 2023, speed backgammon lovers unite on the beautiful Spanish island of Mallorca to compete, socialize and play.

The highlight of this tournament will be an offshore day on a chartered catamaran, with drinking, eating, swimming, snorkeling, music and laughs.

For more info, visit the website 

Hurry to book your room at the ElCid Playa de Palma at the special backgammon rate, as it fills quickly.

Come to Mallorca, play backgammon, enjoy the sun, meet old and new friends and have fun.

Attachments:

Schedule Mallorca 2023

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144 kB

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.

In 2023, the tentative it have over 1000 players attending from 26th to 30th of April. The location is a huge convention center, which 2 hotels on each side with direct access. The WOW-Hotels and Convention center will be exclusively for this huge tournament during those days. Regardless of the number of participants, there will be plenty of space and "squeezing" won´t happen.

Selected matches will be recorded and streamed, live commentary by top players will be provided, a huge screen will display the most interesting pairing, beautiful and unique trophies will be handed out to the winners, and a wonderful closing awards ceremony will take place.

The entry fee is inexpensive and is only aimed to cover partly the organization costs. Special rates have been arranged at both WOW-Hotels. Side-events such a Consultation Doubles and SpeedGammon, as well as DMP-Challenges and numerous Jackpots will be available throughout the tournament days. The total prize pool is projected to exceed 75.000 € !!!

This is a tournament to experience by every player and a benchmark for all other events around the world.

All the info and bookings are available on www.ftbgsystem.com 

Mark your calendar and make your reservation NOW!

WBA has been helpful in the creation of ISTAVDER and is fully supportive of this mega-event and real "backgammon feast"

Attachments:

Brochure Anniversary Tournament 2023

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1758 kB

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.

A classy top player honoring another classy top-play!

You can read the tribute here.

Attachments:

I Mourn for Falafel

[Michi´s Tribute]

1011 kB

Paul Magriel, aka X-22, passed away in Las Vegas on Monday, March 5th 2018. 

X will always be remembered as one of the greatest legends of the game, the godfather of modern backgammon and author of the backgammon bible called "Backgammon". His unforgotten achievements in backgammon and poker are plenty and many.

A great loss for backgammon. Rest In Peace, Paul!

The WBA tournament management software, tsystem, has stopped online operation on March 1st, 2018

In the future, WBA will be using ftbgsystem as their tournament management software, which is a further development of tsystem, offering more features and being updated regularly.

The development and frequent updates of ftbgsystem require countless hours of work and manpower. This why the software is no longer free of charge.

For more information and enquiries, please visit www.ftbgsystem.com

A huge "thank you" to all the participants of the XII. Portuguese Open for making it once again a very special one, among friends and family in a relaxed and cool atmosphere.

This tournament is outstanding in the circuit for being the most relaxed holiday and backgammon tournament with lots of time for sightseeing, relaxing, socializing, dining and drinking and fun, on top of backgammon action and competition.

See you all next year for a very special edition of this tournament for which many have already signed up.

Mark your calendar for the week after Monaco to spend a cool week (or more) in sunny Portugal...

Official Results Portugal 2017:

• Special Award (best assistant): Niusha Tafazzoli (D)
• Special Award (youngest player): Viky Cerna (CZ)
• Special Award (unluckiest player): Franck Stepler (F)

• Chouette-King: Thibaud Thompson (CH)
• DMP-Challenge (64): Eva Zizkova (CZ)
• SpeedGammon-Challenge (64): Michel Serrero (F)
• Super-Jackpot (16): Thomas Kristensen (DK)
• Doubles Winners (16): Katalin & Zsuzsanna Veszeli (H)
• SpeedGammon Jackpot (16): Tatsuya Tanaka (JP)

• “José Salema Memorial” (32): Anna-Maria Zarb (CH)

• Leisure 2nd: Sonia Pellegrini (I)
• Leisure Winner: Luisa Sequeira (P)

• Elite Ultimate Fight Winner: Pavel Zaoral (CZ)
• Elite 3rd: Honza Cerny (CZ)
• Elite 2nd: Zdenek Zizka (CZ)
• Winner Portuguese Open 2017: Thomas Kristensen (DK)

Attachments:

Borchure Portugal 2017

[PDF File]

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21st March is "World Backgammon Day" !!!

For many 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.

After the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, 2021 and partly in 2022, the impossibility to run live events due to it, we encourage everyone to catch up in 2023 and to celebrate the oldest game on the planet with friends and family.

Have fun & play backgammon! 

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.

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...

Read the rest of the article, published in New York Times here.

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.