The Return of Backgammon

Frank Frigo, a San Diegan backgammon player, became the Backgammon World Champion for the second time in his life. This recent news has brought up the possibility of the revival of backgammon’s former popularity. 

This successful player achieved his first world championship success in Monte Carlo, 29 years ago. Well, how did Frigo’s backgammon journey start?

So, all started with a simple Christmas gift, a backgammon board given by his brother Fred. Since Fred was a great backgammon player, Frank wanted to beat him by reading useful books about backgammon strategies. Apparently, those books worked not only in beating his brother, but also many players in local tourneys. It must have been a long journey from competing in the local tourneys until the Monte Carlo World Championships, though. 

His success, as interpreted by Rory Pascar, is not only due to playing well but also a little bit of luck: “Frank played well — just not to his best ability — and got lucky in a couple spots. It was a fantastic match.”. 

Why Did Backgammon Become Less Popular?

In its prime time, backgammon was liked by many celebrities like Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, Michael Caine, O.J. Simpson, and Linda Lovelace. On top of that, Playboy published several articles about backgammon. The founder of Playboy, Hugh Hefner even opened a backgammon club called PIPS in 1973. 

After these updates, Goldfarb wrote about people’s changing perspectives regarding backgammon: “With so much money floating around, more analytical players (many of them from the bridge and poker worlds) began to invade the game, sober schlubs who took the glitz and glamour right out of backgammon. Texas Hold’Em would eventually sub in as the preferred game of the jet set.”. In other words, more players who had more experience in playing bridge and poker sort of converted backgammon into a more analytical and serious game.

Then, arcade games of the 1980s brought an end to backgammon’s wide popularity. Probably backgammon’s altered nature which placed more importance on strategy pushed people into playing with toys based on trying their luck.

Frigo claimed that backgammon is now a “geeked-out” thing, rather than a means to socialize as it was in the 1970s. However, he adds that he feels like the game is becoming more popular, exemplifying that there are backgammon programs in schools in Japan. 

Backgammon and American Football

During his time in Louisville, Frigo worked with Chuck Bower, an Indiana University astrophysicist. Both of them were so amazed by the analytical aspects of backgammon that they applied those principles to create a simulation model for American football- that they named ‘Zeus’. This model was designed with the aim of ‘helping coaches make better decisions’. However, as Bower stated in 2008, “Part of the fun for some of these coaches is they want to be able to make decisions on their own, … If it’s some cookbook formula, some computer that told them to do something, it’s not as much fun.”.

With time, though, coaches began to prefer the Zeus model. For example, Philadelphia and Kansas City won Super Bowls by relying on Zeus’ principles, and nowadays, almost all coaches consider analytics and probability in the games, as it was suggested through the model Zeus.  

An Upcoming Backgammon Event

It is time to finish by informing you about an important backgammon event that will be held soon: Frigo and about 150 of the successful backgammon players from around the world will compete in Westgate Resort & Casino for the Las Vegas Open. Just like in Monte Carlo, the entrance fees will constitute the prize money for the tournament.

You can see the full article here, which was written by Mike Seely on Aug 17, 2023: https://www.usbets.com/is-backgammon-back-again/