This is a web page of pictures from backgammon tournaments I've gone to, mostly. Every now and then I get around to fooling with it. Like right now! I'll put up pictures from tournaments within a few days or a week or a year after playing in them, depending on my whim. I stopped playing for a while, and haven't really started up (well, I happened into Las Vegas Dec 2003, took 3rd, and again at the 2005 Paris Masters and Open, where I won a jackpot or so). Also, every now and then a chouette at Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, or a BGBB event; I even made it to the Monday Evening Chouette in North Oakland.

Okay LATEST backgammon was in St. Louis in August 2017 (I lost to Jim Painter) in the money round, but it wasn't very much anyway...

For playing backgammon online: well, things have come around. We all started out on FIBS, which became stable under Andreas Schneider's coding and Patti Beadle's admin'ing. Those days of chouetting with the likes of dougie, abbas, fnurt, pb, tk, and a lot of people I don't even remember anymore, even with their initials in front of me on the scoresheet -- it was the Golden Age of online play, strangely.

Here's a scoresheet line, which the keeper would paste in the chat (it's all one line):

pg:uteafd   fn-34x dg-9 pb-10x gk+8 ew+10 ub-2 tk+20 ab+29 [ja+2 AM-13]

I leave you to figure it out...

The FIBS chouette lasted until 1998 or so.

Then it was Gamesgrid for the longest time, even before playing for money was built in. But after a while all I would do is waste my time playing the bots. GG never moved forward, and finally closed down in May of 2008 or so.

Meanwhile I started playing on Play65, where the jackpots and tournaments are automated (I wonder why they never did that on GG) and they have occasional money-added events. For a while in 2006 I couldn't get on there, getting some odd error message.

Then I was mostly found on Truemoneygames, which I got into again via poker. But it was for euros (?), and I had no easy deposit route. So I'd freeroll my way up. (Plus, they were the first bg site to also have poker...)

That got old, so I got back on Play65 -- and to get affiliation kickback I set up on their sister site, Prime Backgammon.

Prague 2000

Update: long gone! It had a "heart attack" (blown gasket) a mere few months before *I* did. The by-the-book repair guy made it worse, old pistons don't reset.

I love Wolverine workboots. Steel toes again, but they're light, like Rockports. Weird lacing. It may be a while before this pair looks like Arnie in Terminator. [July 2008: No, the steel has already sliced in where I shift...] [February 2018: I just threw them out; the soles liquified!]

And supersocks: I got a couple pairs of some Australian socks, they seemed great but bunched in the toes; then I found "InGenius" boot socks at the Outdoor store. They were the absolute nuts. I got another pair. The summer came around, I bought two pairs of their lighter socks. Enough!

So then it was poker for a while. I was filling out some form on a poker site which asked for "Profession" and it didn't have an option "Online Poker Player." That felt wrong. It was Gabe who finally pushed me into playing (July 2003), after "prepping" by Bob "Coach" Ciaffone and Shino. Not necessarily a favor. Once I was going, Pete was my main mentor, and of course Diana. And Jinelle even gets some backhand credit, dragging me onto TMG to help her game, when as they say, the teacher learned more than the student...

I had a "result," a mere ten weeks after taking the game up. I played in some little Sunday tournament on Party Poker (where I am "ekwity:), and .... well, I paid $26 and won $36. How could *that* be bad?? (Okay, I'm leaving out a few zeroes...)

I was a commentator on Chess.fm, under the icon Tony Rook. Then the ICC took chess.fm in, which was okay, maybe. But he left, then ICC went about trying to do the same thing with no personality (well, no Tony), then they tried to pair me up in a way Tony knew not to do (I had vetoed it, really), and next thing I knew I was shelved. Blacklisted even.

Sep 2004: I did a couple rounds of Dortmund (including the game Kramnik-Leko, a "sample" before their upcoming match). I am certainly not the player I used to be, but we have fun and do manage to get into the games.

Jul 2005: going to cover Biel in a couple weeks. I've been there a few times, my first wife's mother lives just six blocks from the site!

2006: Chess.fm is now officially the "ICC Webcast," part of the Internet Chess Club (www.chessclub.com). See you there as well! (ID ekw) (I *do* play the odd speed game...)

March 2006: Okay, that was a while ago! I didn't realize this has been going on so long! I've just been covering both Linares and the US Championship in San Diego. 32 games at once?!?? Crazy. The only person to complain was the woman doing the synched chessboard, "you talk too fast!" SORRYY....

October 2011: Playing again! Chess that is. Mechanics' Marathons. I tried rapids and there went my rating. I was 2421reg/2477quick when I quit in 1995; now I'm back *over* 2300 regular, but the quick rating is under 2200...

Also FNMs at Berkeley Chess School. I am 2017 Champion!

What I'm on: Compaq FD 750 (Circuit City sale), Canon Powershot SD750 Digital Elph (Tigerdirect sale), Google Chrome, cygwin, (g)vi(m) via ssh.