The WBGF World Teams and Individual Championships are coming to the UK!
There’s going to be whole week of top class backgammon in London; August 24-30th 2026 will see the WBGF World Teams and Individual Championships come to London. You can download the brochure for the WBGF World Teams and Individual events here and the registration form is available here.
The championships will be played alongside the 30th Mind Sports Olympiad, taking place at the same venue from 22–30 August. The wider programme includes backgammon variants such as Nardy, Nackgammon and Plakoto, alongside poker, Catan, Scrabble and many other events. You can view the full MSO schedule and register here.
Do we have your club’s details up to date?
We’ve had a number of new backgammon clubs open up around the country since lockdown, and we’re busy preparing a map of where they all are. Please do let us know if the details we hold are correct – we’d like to be able to put new players in touch with you and give you publicity, and we can do that better if we are up to date!
Links to other UKBGF pages
Backgammon is one of the world’s truly great board games. Versions of the game have been played for about 5,000 years – a testament to its enduring fascination. Hundreds of people play live games regularly in the UK and thousands play regularly online.
If you are new to backgammon you can learn how to play by downloading and reading Chris Bray’s ‘Introduction to Backgammon’ which is one of the Newcomer’s Guides on our Resources page. If you are familiar with the game, but are hesitant about visiting a club or entering a tournament, other guides in this section might also be helpful, such as A Beginner’s Introduction to Tournaments and Tournament Etiquette for the Uninitiated. The Resources page also has a link to the current version of the UKBGF Tournament Rules, as well as other useful links.
There are many live tournaments throughout the year which you can enter, either weekly or monthly, at the growing number of backgammon clubs throughout the UK. Most of these clubs submit results to the UKBGF ratings system, enabling members to keep track of their progress in the live national ratings. As you progress you may also want to enter some of the larger annual tournaments, both in the UK and abroad.
The UKBGF oversees the annual UK Open and the UK Clubs Championship and also coordinates the UKBGF Tour, comprising about a dozen tournaments around the UK. All of these can be found on our UK Backgammon Calendar. Some include both ‘Masters’ and ‘Intermediate’ flights, and some also have separate competitions for beginners and inexperienced or ‘social’ players. Live streaming of matches from UK tournaments is becoming more common, either on the UKBGF twitchtv channel or on Facebook. To see the UKBGF archive of match recordings from previous tournaments visit the UKBGF YouTube channel. A selection of photos from these and other tournaments can be found in the UKBGF Flickr account.
Backgammon is a friendly and social game. If you are new to the scene you will find a very warm welcome at any UK club night or tournament. You don’t have to be one of the 1000+ UKBGF members to play in a UKBGF-affiliated club, but please consider joining to support our efforts to publicise and grow the game.
Click here for details of UKBGF membership benefits, fees and how to join. Please note that, for UK residents, UKBGF membership is completely free for full time students of any age as well as for all players under the age of 26.
Membership milestone
For the first time in the UKBGF’s history, we have 1,000* current members (Feb 9, 2026). Federation chair Julia Hayward said: “We’re delighted to announce this milestone. More and more people are joining clubs across the country. Membership offers help and discounts to players and helps us to develop and grow the game across the country.”
* Since the UKBGF was established in 2015, 1,615 people have taken out membership. Due to lapses in the intervening years there have (until now!) always been fewer than 1,000 current members.
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