Backgammon Life Stories

This proposed new series for the UKBGF claims three ‘victims’ per edition, of an intended wide variety of scope, ability, age and gender, to describe their journey through the game and to address the thematic question of how and why backgammon is such a “mental health marvel”.

For our first trio we have a rose between two thorns, in Rachel Rhodes [RR], Ian Gwynne [IG] and “The Rake”  – Raymond Kershaw [RK].  My thanks to them for their fascinating insights.

1) Describe your roots and history in the game.

IG: I was taught backgammon by a friend in 1998, who was a decent player, probably around a 10 PR by today’s measure.

He only agreed to teach me if we played for £1 a point, with beavers, natural doubles and raccoons active! I racked up over £2,000 loss before I had learned enough to hold my own. I then won it all back plus another £3,000 in a couple of all night sessions!

I joined Manchester club for 2 years, and started going to BIBA events. I became Manchester Champion, and had moderate success on the BIBA scene.

Highlights have been playing for and captaining Wales, winning Worcester Turkey 2 years in a row, and winning UK Open consolation.

RK: My first game of backgammon was played on a board drawn on the back of a breakfast cereal packet, with crunched strips of paper for the checkers, one die and a very vague idea of the rules.  It was 1976 at the height of the backgammon boom and within a week I had found one of the few useful books, The Backgammon Book by Oswald Jacoby and John Crawford, bought a tiny board and found a pub, The Water Rat in Chelsea in London, only a short walk from where I lived.  We were crammed inside and I had my board balanced on my lap and kept saying to myself “I’m going this way round”.

We soon moved to a variety of pubs and restaurants and for a short period to The Grosvenor, a smart bridge and backgammon club in Mayfair in London.  (We played backgammon all night in one restaurant where the proprietor served wine in tea cups from a tea pot.  When a policeman called about 3am he was assured that we were not breaking the licensing law.)  Also I remember how good I felt when one evening I won the Sunday night tournament at Crockford’s casino, despite being 3-1 up in a match to 5, doubling and being shocked when my opponent redoubled to 4.

RR: It feels as though I’ve always had it in my life. Maybe that’s because I’m getting old! In any event I have been rattling dice and shuffling checkers for at least 45 years ! Eek.

I must like it.

I’m not at all ashamed to say that I am addicted and well pretty much obsessed  with it.

RK: For most of the 1980s and 1990s, I was a regular at the Double Five Backgammon Club run by George and Diana Sulimirski.  It became London’s premier backgammon club.  Among the celebrities I met there were Paul Magriel (the most famous player in the world who had published Backgammon in 1976), Terence Reese (the famous bridge player and author), Victor Lownes (the joint founder with Hugh Hefner of the Playboy clubs) and Chris Bray (the prolific author and now backgammon correspondent for The Times).

2) What is it about the game that most attracts and intrigues you?

RK: Backgammon was different then.  There were no precision dice, no lipped cups, no baffle boxes, no clocks, no scorecards and no cameras.  Before computer programs, we played at a low level, though our ignorance was gradually being reduced by Magriel’s Backgammon and by new analysis from the USA;  the books by Danny Kleinman;  the books of annotated matches in Kent Goulding’s Backgammon with the Champions;  and the magazines Inside Backgammon by Bill Robertie and Kent Goulding and Chicago Point by Bill Davis.

There were no computer programs and no websites like Heroes and Galaxy on which to play backgammon.  Backgammon was gambling in tournaments, chouettes and money games (now given the genteel reference of “unlimited games”).  The sole objective was to win a match as Performance Rating (PR) had not been invented.  I think backgammon was more fun in the old days and to me Backgammon Masters Awarding Body meetings, recording matches and analysing PRs, look rather grim.  But if people enjoy them, that’s fine.

RR: There are so many facets of it which keep me wanting more. I love especially the sounds. The dice shaking and rolling; the click of the checkers. I love all the different boards, the colours and the materials. I see so much beauty in them and in the patterns of the game itself, its simplicity and its complexity. I love the transient nature of it. Like a live musical performance, it’s something you experience and it changes you, but then it’s over. You can’t hold on to it or keep it.

For some this impermanence could seem to make it a waste of time. But I believe that time you enjoy wasting, is not a waste of time.

IG: I think I must have low dopamine levels, and have always looked for a ‘buzz’.  When I was young, beer and rugby worked, replaced by gambling and ‘recreationals’ which probably aided depression.

Going away to a tournament is always something to look forward to, with low investment, and the chance of silverware and glory!

Dicky Biddle has a great formula at the Cotswolds Invitational Bg and Yoga tounament. Everyone sits for a lovely 3 course dinner together, and  the whole weekend is a lot of fun. For me, the only tournament where results are secondary to having a few drinks, eating well and having fun.

RK: In backgammon nothing is hidden and it is obvious that it requires numerical reasoning.  At school I was not allowed to study maths beyond age 15 because I was “on the arts side”.  Backgammon provided an incentive to learn a bit more.  As Art Benjamin says in Lesson 55 on Dan Rovira’s excellent Backgammon is Beautiful YouTube channel, without introducing gambling backgammon can teach infants to count and teenagers elementary probability calculations.  (When people tell me there is no skill in backgammon, I ask them what is the probability of rolling at least one six with two dice and they usually can’t work it out.)  Art also notes that backgammon teaches the life skills of comparing risk and reward and not blowing your cool (usually banging the checkers or throwing the dice) when you make the right play but lose anyway.

RR: All the emotions of life itself can be experienced in it. A roller-coaster of states, adrenalin-fuelled heart racing excitement, trepidation, fear, fortune and disaster.

3) This column believes Backgammon to be a great mental health marvel. How has – and does – it help with your mental health?

RK: Will asks whether backgammon has been good for my mental health.  The answer is obviously yes as anything one enjoys has this benefit.  But what else might it have been?  Not chess as I can no more reason a move than assemble an IKEA flat pack.  And not bridge.  I went to a beginners’ class taught by Zia Mahmood before he became famous.  We were so stupid that he shouted at us and that was the last of bridge for me.  I don’t have the imagination to guess bridge or poker players’ cards.

IG: I left Manchester in 2005 to start a family and business and BG was forgotten about. I still gambled, with poker becoming a replacement, but a very volatile one!

14 years later, I found myself in the depths of depression, with low self-esteem and self-worth.  I didn’t understand it, nor did my wife. She told me one day that she had looked up Worcester BG club, and I was going the following day.

Begrudgingly, I went, and never looked back. Sean Jones, and the everyone at the club, were hugely welcoming, and I relearned the game we all love. With XG now a big thing, the learning curve was fast, and I was soon on the UK circuit.

RR: The absorbing nature of backgammon makes it the most perfect distraction therapy I know. It could almost be described as a form of meditation. It certainly quiets that monkey-mind of everyday worries that chatter at us in the background.  I often think that were I ever to be in prison, then I could comfortably pass the time if I had a nice backgammon set and a competitive opponent.

IG : BG gave me back my self-worth, and something healthy to obsess about. Every roll of the dice gives you varying levels of high  or low, without the need for money to stimulate these feelings.

Where daily life can drag me down, a live or online win can make me feel great, and even losing with a better than average PR can have the same effect.

I owe a lot to BG, and feel a lot of players would struggle in life without it. Mainly decent, caring people, where it is easy to make a lot of friends, who are pleased for you when you do well. As opposed to poker, which is all about winning and money, where you will bluff your best friend.

I hope to start a club in Hereford one day, as a feeder to Worcester, to give back to the game that has done so much for me.

RK: I have been inspired by the peroration with which Magriel ends:  “All aspects of backgammon, in fact, contain surprises and mysteries enough for a lifetime of study, play, and of course enjoyment.”  My book Backgammon Funfair is a collection of mysteries which you don’t need to know such as “fewest rolls which hit when there is one direct shot” (it’s three, not eleven) and when you would rather roll double 3 than double 6 in a bear off race.

For about thirty years I have proof read Chris Bray’s newspaper articles, firstly in The Independent and now in The Times.  Read Chris’s books which are collections of these articles.  They are tightly written with each article making a clear point in one page.

The demographics of backgammon are not good with an under-representation at tournaments of women and young players.  I shall not help this imbalance by continuing for a few more years to play this game which still fascinates me.

RR: A very social and sociable pastime it is too. I appreciate all the very many friends all over the world that I have solely through playing this game. It does seem to attract largely the best sort of people. Critical thinkers, risk takers and just plain wacky types. Which of these are you? Which am I?  See you over the board soon and let the battle commence!