(This article is a response to Will Cockerell’s article The Future of the Backgammon World Championships, which you can consult here)

Just as most children dream of being astronauts or firemen, most serious tournament backgammon players dream of being World Champion. More than any amount of cash, or any performance rating, it is the World Championship title alone that instantly makes the sleepless nights, the suffering of bad beats, and the memorising of take points all worthwhile. The title needs to be something that people want to put on their business cards and their tombstones — something that is easily understood by non-backgammon playing friends and family.

The main title of World Champion of Backgammon (as well as the subsidiary titles of Speed, Doubles, and Women’s World Champion) need to be universally recognised as the summits of achievement in our community. As such, the tournament that confers these titles must be the ‘flagship event’ of backgammon’s yearly calendar — epitomizing what we are about as a community. Fortunately, we are moving in this direction.

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A vision for the next 50 years

By Will Cockerell

The Backgammon World Championships [BGWC] should be the jewel in the crown of backgammon matchplay, with five key ideals:

• To grow and promote the oldest, greatest boardgame in the world
• To put the players first and profiteering second, and to avoid all accusations of price-gouging and opportunism
• To be more readily accessible to the world’s most serious matchplayers
• Make the host city the best possible locale for the BGWC, with less consideration given to the fame or status of the city itself.
• To vastly increase the value and challenge of reaching the last 128 of the BGWC and ensure more of the world’s top players feature in the latter stages.

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