Backgammon News

November 15, 2009

French Backgammon Open 2009

By Robert Wachtel

My favorite backgammon tournament of the year is Chiva Tafazzoli's French Open, held for the last seven years at the end of October in the Paris suburb of Enghien-Les-Bains.

As the "les Bains" implies, Enghien is one of those classic European resort towns that grew up around a natural hot spring. The moneyed classes came there in the 19th century to "take the waters", and a casino, built on the shore of the village's pretty lake, followed in short order.

The most reliable organizer in Europe, Chiva is a genius at finding generous sponsors for his tournaments. In the case of the French Open, that would be the Enghien-Les-Bains casino, which this year added a whopping 50,000 euros to the prize pool - because, one presumes, the management calculated that it would make back even more than that when the backgammon players tried their hand at its games of chance. The easier to realize that windfall, the casino granted each of us free entry (yes, we Americans find the idea quaint that a gambling house should charge its customers for the right to lose their money, but that is no doubt because there is a je ne sais quoi or two we are missing) and 50 euros of free drinks per day.

The picturesque location and all of these freebies guaranteed that the tournament would draw a large field, with most of the world's top players participating in both the individual and doubles competitions. The only real frustration was that, with this abundance of equity spread over a closely-scheduled cornucopia of events -- the main, two varieties of doubles, two superjackpots, a DMP tournament, a satellite for the upcoming Cyprus Backgammon Open and a "Sassongammon" event – even the most organized players were forced to pass up some very tempting opportunities.

Falafel vs. Backgammon World

It has been quite a while since I cashed in a major tournament, and this one was no exception. But my special form of consolation is that, in the course of getting knocked out, I record as many interesting positions as I can. When the dust has settled, it is fun to gather up a group of five or six players and poll them as to how they would have handled these situations. The scene gets especially entertaining when a few superstars with strong opinions and a propensity to bet on those opinions join the group. Unfortunately, what with all those 50-euro drink coupons in circulation, Stick Rice was MIA throughout much of the tournament; but I did have the pleasure of having his usual foil, Falafel, and his prodigy-friend Matt Cohn-Geier sitting in on a few quiz sessions. Also in occasional attendance and adding to the mix were "giants" Katja Spillum and Masayuki Mochizuki (aka Mochy).

Apart from the Socratic pleasure of observing the clash of arguments (or rationalizations) behind each player's decisions and watching the bets go down, this format introduces a fascinating social component - peer pressure - into the experience of solving a backgammon puzzle. Once a few strong players have agreed on the answer to a problem, it becomes difficult indeed to even conceive that another solution is possible. It is under this kind of pressure that only a truly independent thinker - like Falafel - will find the courage to go against the crowd. Here are two examples from Paris in which it was Falafel against the world: and the world lost!

In this position, from an early game in one of my matches (basically a money-game play), I rolled a 65 as Black. Solution at end of article.

In this one, also from an early game in a long match, I rolled a 42 as Black. Again, you will find the solution at the end …

Solutions

Position 1: There are two obvious, "routine" plays available here: 22/11 (the play I, and most of the crowd chose) and 13/7, 13/8 (chosen by the rest of the crowd). But the right play, by quite a large margin, was Falafel's 13/7, 6/1! It turns out that the five point board this play makes is very important: though it does pay off to an ace, 13/7, 6/1 transforms Black's hits from scary tossups where he could even get gammoned himself to pretty clear winners.

Position 2: The obvious play, which I made over the board, and which was chosen by every single player (except Falafel) to whom I showed the position, is 8/4, 6/4. True, after Black makes this key inner board point White gets a few shots at the blot on the ten point, but surely they are not fatal. And is there even another play? Is a cowardly, tiny play like 23/21, 10/6 possible?

Not only is it possible, it is right. The combination of bringing the 23 point blot to the launching pad and saving the ten point blot is worth more than the four point. It felt like stealing when we all put our money on the making the four point, but Falafel collected!

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